Formed in Cincinnati before migrating westward to San Fransisco, cLOUDDEAD emerged at the turn of the century to profoundly impact the sound of experimental hip hop. Comprised of lyricists Yoni Wolf (Why?) and Doseone (Adam Drucker) and producer Odd Nosdam (David P. Madson), cLOUDDEAD debuted with a series of six 10-inch EPs that were in turn compiled to form the group’s debut album in 2001, an eponymous 3LP set that still carries an avant-garde thrust nearly a quarter century later. Superior Viaduct’s reissue is due on November 29.
Experimental (or underground) hip hop was burgeoning from the late 1990s and into the new century, with Anticon, a label formed by seven individuals including the three members of cLOUDDEAD, one part of a wave that encompassed imprints ranging from Rawkus (Company Flow, Mos Def, Talib Kweli), Definitive Jux (Aesop Rock, Cannibal Ox, Mr. Lif, RJD2), Stones Throw (JDilla, Madlib, MF Doom), and 75 Ark (Antipop Consortium, The Coup, Dan the Automator).
Anticon was formed in 1998 and gathered a deep roster that crossed over into electronica and indie rock. cLOUDDEAD is amongst the label’s most lauded projects while also being somewhat mysterious, even as all three members were active prior to the group’s formation. Wolf and Drucker met in the mid-’90s and were part of the group Apogee before forming Greenthink as a duo and releasing two albums. With the addition of Madson, they became cLOUDDEAD.
Occasionally the experimental tag has been applied to hip hop that was better assessed as just quirky or raw or perhaps just dense with ideas. But in the case of cLOUDDEAD, the descriptor of experimental really fits, and to the point where some would argue that what they were up to wasn’t hip hop at all. But of course, upon encountering new developments in the music, many have decried “that’s not hip hop” for decades.
But still, much of cLOUDDEAD is more appropriately categorized as ambient or collage-like or electronic in nature. Furthermore, the hazy drift that dominates many of the pieces is decidedly lo-fi, solidifying a connection to indie rock, though it should be emphasized that the indie rock in cLOUDDEAD’s sphere of influence (Flying Saucer Attack, for one example) hardly ever explicitly “rocked,” and let’s be thankful for that.
cLOUDDEAD is refreshingly free of cliché as it absorbs its influences, or similarities naturally (Eno for one instance, and William Basinski for another). If often a strange experience (and no less strange now than it was in 2001), cLOUDDEAD is never strained. And the hip hop is baked in subtly, so that rather than faltering into a dated experience, the music has aged well. This gets us back to how cLOUDDEAD is still operating out there far ahead of right now.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
