Cautious Clay

One Liner: Deeply groovy alternative R&B guy who I actually like

Wikipedia Genre: R&B, hip hop
Home: Cleveland

Poster Position: Late Addition
Both Weekends

Sunday at 3:30pm on the Miller Lite Stage.

Thoughts:  I gotta say, this guy beat back my first impressions.  As you likely know by now, I'm never going to aim for R&B type music.  It's just never my bag.  But I've kept this guy on for way longer than I needed to, and found myself dancing a little bit and grooving to the jams.  His voice is fantastic, and these songs groove.

Real name is Joshua Karpeh, and from Cleveland.  Actually went through college and got a degree, which is a surprising turn - almost every other artist seems like they get a little ways into their college career and then bag it for the music career.  In addition to making this solid R&B stuff and the beats underlying it, he can also actually play instruments - saxophone, flute, guitar, bass, keyboard, and drums.  Impressive.  Also impressive, he got a Taylor Swift co-sign when she sampled his track "Cold War" for a song on Lover.  That track is, unsurprisingly, his most streamed.  When the TayTay army comes calling, they come correct.  88.9 million.

That track comes from his 2018 album Blood Type, which is overall really good.  I've run through it a few times and its the kind of thing I keep re-starting even when I should move on to the next band (I'm running out of time, man!).  Pretty basic tune, but something about it hooks me anyway.

After that opening disc, he also has 2019's Table of Context and 2021's Deadpan Love.  The 2019 album gets no love on his top tracks on Spotify.  Not sure why, it isn't some sort of experimental metal album or something.  His top streamer from the new album is "Dying in the Subtlety," which is a great title.  5.3 million streams.

That groove is tight.  The Jason Statham fat head is cracking me up.  I wonder if he'll have a real band behind him like he does in the video, or if he'll be using just a laptop/beat machine.  let's look at the Tiny Desk and see what he did there, shall we?

There we go - real band!  I'm impressed by this dude.  I just got straight up goosebumps up my arms when he sang the word "spoke" like a damn angel in the first few minutes of that Tiny Desk.  Jam the sax, baby!

I'm on board!  Even if his performing name is a dad pun!  It also helps that, unless Tenille Arts is going to be better than the name is leading me to expect, this hour is wide open for me anyway.