Clams Casino

New Jersey producer Clams Casino, whose style merged murky, distorted beats with vaporous shoegaze textures and eerie, fragmented samples, essentially created the cloud rap style on his own. His atmospheric work for A$AP Rocky, Main Attrakionz, and especially Lil B drew widespread acclaim near the start of the 2010s, while the 2011 release Instrumentals emerged as a defining mixtape that built a devoted audience and moved his reach past niche rap listeners. That approach kept shaping music across the decade through productions and remixes for FKA twigs, Lana Del Rey, and Blood Orange. He kept issuing solo instrumental projects and reached a major label for the first time with 32 Levels in 2016, featuring contributions from Vince Staples, Kelela, Samuel T. Herring of Future Islands, and additional guests.

Michael Volpe first connected with Lil B, at the time part of the Bay Area group the Pack, through MySpace toward the close of the 2000s, securing an initial collaboration. Lil B recorded several of Volpe’s atmospheric, introspective, and emotionally charged beats on tracks such as “Realist Alive,” “Motivation,” and “I’m God,” the last of which Soulja Boy also adapted for “2 Milli.” Recognition grew once listeners learned Volpe had supplied beats for Main Attrakionz, Squadda Bambino, and Mobb Deep’s Havoc as well. In March 2011 he shared a free 13-track instrumental mixtape that collected key productions alongside one unused beat. Tri Angle then put out his debut official solo effort, the Rainforest EP, that June, followed by a limited vinyl edition of Instrumentals on the experimental imprint Type. Further instrumental collections appeared in 2012 and 2013, coinciding with productions for A$AP Rocky, Mac Miller, and Blood Orange. Later highlights from 2014 and 2015 included ScHoolboy Q’s “Gravy,” FKA twigs’ “Hours,” and three tracks from Vince Staples’ Summertime ’06.

After signing with Columbia, Volpe issued his first major-label artist project, 32 Levels, in 2016. A fourth instrumental mixtape followed in 2017. The Lil Peep collaboration “4 Gold Chains” appeared posthumously in 2018, the same year Volpe contributed to releases by Joji and serpentwithfeet. The fully instrumental Moon Trip Radio arrived in 2019, and the 2020 compilation Instrumental Relics gathered early highlights, among them a version of “I’m God” with the Imogen Heap sample licensed.