Clams trades in on the stripped-back, exhibitive nature of the Instrumentals tapes for a decidedly collaborative effort, enlisting the usual suspects (Lil B, A$AP Rocky) as well as some more interesting inclusions (Samuel T. All too often on 32 Levels, his debut studio record, there’s a privation of said weightlessness it’s as if some of his guests buoy him back down to earth. The Instrumentals series laid his best work bare, exuding a gauzy vibe that was no worse off for the lack of a rapper or singer to float over his productions.Ĭlams’s choicest beats - the “I’m God”s and “Wassup”s - evoke an airy quality, weightless in spite of layers upon layers of effects and manipulation. If Lil B’s ascension was over the traditional confines of what made a rapper objectively “good” in the eyes of a fairly conservative listener base, Clams’s was above hip-hop altogether - hyperbolic, perhaps, but you won’t find too many other producers’ mixtapes pressed to vinyl, on a label home to the likes of Yellow Swans and Black to Comm. Clams Casino was a relatively early beneficiary of Lil B’s beat selection, giving him one of his most iconic tracks in “I’m God” from 2009’s 6 Kiss. There are plenty of YouTube/DatPiff/whatever comments decrying the BasedGod’s irreverent bars - rest assured that we’ll never be in short supply of those - but many of them will concede that, at the very least, he has a good ear for beats. And yet, some of the best cloud production is easily dislocated from a guiding voice. Lyrical minutiae diffuse and dissipate into sonic vistas, as cumulic beats and synth pads interlock with words and utterances in a “celestial hand-in-hand” (to quote Collin Anderson’s awesome SGP review).

Part of cloud rap’s appeal is located in language and the respective personality of the emcee. Nietzsche depicted his übermensch, the “overcoming-man,” as a force that defies the logic of gravity, soaring like an eagle with the clouds beneath him: similarly, SpaceGhostPurrp “always must elevate” over the haters Lil B can literally become a/the god when he writes, sounding like the proverbial castle in the sky in doing so.

Cloud rappers ultimately aim to ascend, to rise above socioeconomic situation and land somewhere in the haze of a daydream. To quote Squadda B and Mondre M.A.N., it’s “that shit that you can trust.” What it affirms exactly is largely down to the artist themselves - whether it’s Raider Klan’s throwback vxsthxtics, Main Attraktionz’s kush-coma hymnals, or the free-associative panegyrics of Lil B - but generally speaking, those who pertain to the Cloud Body say “yes” to anything and everything that life might throw at them.

“Yes.” Cloud rap is a yes, an affirmation.

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