One Liner: Up and coming rapper who won the Tiny Desk contest this year
Poster Position: Third Quarter - Line 19
Saturday at 2pm
BeatBox Stage
Thoughts: This is a Dallas-based rap collective, and they are pretty solid. The rapper who seems to front it is named Cameron McCloud, and he is apparently a preschool teacher on the side. I can't imagine the concept of thinking of the sweet, little old ladies who were my preschool teachers at Good Shepherd leaving their day feeding us graham crackers and stacking blocks to go write a sick rhyme about their gay identity or their depression.
A year ago, he challenged himself to release a new verse daily on Instagram, so that he would push his writing forward no matter what. He says that helped him to let go of his perfectionist mentality and just go with things rather than obsess. Also, his mom died of a heart attack while he was completing his last EP, which is terrible.
Aside from that sad shit, this is pretty fun. The name comes from his mental health journey and being placed on medication a decade ago for bipolar depressions and paranoid schizophrenia. he soon realized that creating music was a better cure than the drugs, so he went for it with these jams.
His early singles from 2015 and 2017 are not as good or as fun. Feels like he is feeling out the plan on those - more R&B focused to me. But by the 2021 album BAMN and 2023's Center of the Maze you can see the focus is onto the rap and wild fun. His 2025 album, Work of A.R.T. is where he seems to finally get noticed though, as it has his top streamer - "No Brainer" - with 652k streams.
Got some Andre 3000 flavor in that as the beat just barrels forward with funky joy. I know that those drums aren't actually groundbreaking of whatever, but that beat is funky and tight. Dig it. His newest single is called "WTF (Where the Files)" that appears to be about the Epstein files.
The other top streamer is a 2025 single called "THE ARTSHOW" with 652k streams. Just like his other single! How did he do that?!?!
As you might imagine from that video, he made a submission to Tiny Desk, and actually won! His show just got published about 3 weeks ago!
Those outfits are fire and his hair matches... The text below that video says that he applied four years in a row for the contest, and then finally won this year! it also says that the decision to crown Cure for Paranoia was unanimous. That is really pretty cool. And now we have the chance to see him go off in person!
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