Little Rock native and living legend Pepperboy is back with a new mixtape this month, “Pottersfield,” which is probably the year’s most existentially fraught and death-obsessed local record to date. Pepperboy has always walked a lonely road (marched to the beat of his own 808?), with conceptual LPs focusing on the horrors of war, etc., but “Pottersfield” finds him in the new and harrowing position of contemplating his own impending mortality, even somewhat enthusiastically on tracks like “Gold Casket” and “Dead Heaven.”
Cloud rap — a once-vital internet aesthetic of which Pepperboy was an early adopter — was always in part an effort to distill these minor but profound feelings of loss and nostalgia, and Pepperboy remains effective at this. When it works, it can make for powerful listening. The record features frequent collaborators Squadda B, Keyboard Kid and Little Rock’s S Ray. See for yourself: