Nate Avis grew up in the hip-hop mecca of Chicago and moved to Denver in 2014. Once here, he had a hard time finding local rappers. But after making some connections, in 2017 he started a blog called Jiggy Hip-Hop and began writing about talent that other outlets were ignoring. Through the blog, Avis established himself as part of the local hip-hop community.
Now he's taking his work championing Denver's best to another level by launching a series of collectible rapper trading cards.
"I've collected sports cards — and when I was a kid, Pokémon cards and stuff — for pretty much two decades now," Avis says. "Being a huge fan of hip-hop, there was never a collectible product that was similar to a baseball card or a Pokémon card. So just as an art project, originally, I re-created old Topps baseball card designs, and instead of having the baseball players on there, I would put famous rappers like Tupac."