RETROSPECTIVE
Cloud rap
Drawing from trap, chillwave and lo-fi sounds, cloud rap is a genre which coexists happily alongside its influences
Main Attrakionz, named kings of the cloud rap castle before there even was one
© Daniel Boczarski/Getty Images
There are certain genres – drum&bass or dubstep, for example – which stand alone, almost purposely in defiance of everything around them. Other genres are happier to mix and interact, acknowledging that dividing lines are often blurred. Cloud rap fits squarely into the latter category, drawing on and coexisting happily alongside a number of genres like trap, lo-fi and chillwave.
You’d be forgiven for assuming that the name cloud rap had something to do with cloud storage or SoundCloud. There is an element of that (more on which later), but the answer is somehow much more in keeping with the often weird and wonderful sound of cloud rap. The story goes that in a 2010 interview with Oakland rap duo Main Attrakionz, blogger Walker Chambliss referred to rapper Squadda B as “the king of cloud rap”. Chambliss reportedly had misremembered another blog post in which it was reported that Squadda’s fellow Bay Area rapper Lil B had shown Cocaine Blunts blogger Noz a CGI image of a castle floating in clouds, proclaiming: “That’s the kind of music I want to make.” Nevertheless, Chambliss inadvertently coined the phrase.