Meet the Emerging Musicians Defining Denver's Sound 5280.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from 5280.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Around 2005, Justin Johnson at the time a football player for Temple University in Philadelphia was looking for an outlet while recovering from a broken fibula and dislocated ankle. Fortunately, the school had a tech center with a music room and a recording studio, and Johnson turned to producing music.
“I started going there when I was going through rehab for football,” he recalls. “I learned how to make beats on different software and would get coached by some students. Making melodies at Temple was the starting point that made me realize how much I truly love music, sounds and the vibes.
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.