Take a moon voyage back to 2011, crash landing in the drug-fueled underground of Seattle hip-hop. Rapper Nacho Picasso and production duo Blue Sky Black Death created serious waves with their collaborative album For The Glory, later going on to release a trilogy together (and then some).
It was during this collaborative history that many listeners from outside of the Pacific Northwest (including myself) began to research and explore the sounds of the city. This led to me catching wind of a collective known as Cloud Nice. Nacho was a member and to this day, Cloud Nice contains one of the most slept on Bandcamps around. Of their discography (2007-2012), the first project that had me press play was Ziploc Hip-Hop, a free project from trio BadAssYellowBoyz made up of Nacho, Steezie Nasa, and Jarv Dee. Producers Eric G and Sax G handled most of the beats and the whole tape brings me back to a nostalgic year for hip-hop music.
One of the finest of this collection, a mind numbing excursion in outer space with weed smoke and plenty of bubbly. Adventures in a Helluvastate. Made up of Thadwick Tristen Trevor III (aka Young TH of State of the Artist) and Swan Coltrane (aka Tay Sean of Helladope) joined forces for the groovy space hop majesty.
You can find five projects on their SoundCloud (as well as numerous singles) in the years that Cloud Nice was consistently releasing music. Nacho Picasso's Blunt Raps (2010) is obviously one to revisit while on this page, as well as the two drops from the founders: $ex $ells (2007) by Tay Sean and Chillin' in the Future (2008) by Mikey Nice. Enjoy Seattle's past while up on a cloud.
