Artist Profile: Nic.

Written By G.C. Bellchamber

Nic., the artistic alias of Wisconsin-based rapper Nicholas Harper, delivers smooth and lyrically potent tracks, etching out carefully-penned verses from the turmoils of his spirit.

His familiarity with music began as a child, surrounded by his parents’ musings on Tupac and LL Cool J and eventually developing his own love for the lyricism of Lil Wayne. 


“It was Jesus, Tupac, Lil Wayne; that was it for me.”

Yet, his own love for writing came about in the classroom of one of his English teachers, who would put on Louis Armstrong as background music and tell her students to write freely on a routine basis.

Soon after he began writing, the songwriting process, however youthful and undeveloped it was at the time, came to him rather obsessively.

“I was just filling them up, asking my mom to buy me composition book after composition book, and just writing infinite bad songs. You know, you're 10 or 11 years old; you write songs about anything… But when I was 17, that was the first time I was in a studio and then I [realized]... that I could really record stuff and put it out.”

While all of that time spent writing creatively gave Nic. a head start on perfecting his pen, the serious challenges faced by all young artists were certainly present in his journey as well.

After heading to school in North Carolina, he needed to become comfortable with projecting his musical image outwards, both socially and online, in order to make the fact that he made music known.

Through people he met on campus, he quickly became involved in the burgeoning North Carolina rap scene, partaking in the tight community of local performers and the opportunities provided by an active and engaged audience.

“[North Carolina] was really exciting. Rap music, hip-hopness in general, R&B too was a big deal down there… People would show up to the shows energetic. I don't feel like people were hating and scared to show you love… It definitely helped me get much better at performing, and it also helped me to take myself more seriously.”

Yet, following the completion of his degree, Nic. moved to Wisconsin to pursue a job opportunity, isolating him from his community and, in a way, forcing him to reset artistically.

He realized that, although he had constructed a presence in North Carolina, he needed to maximize his output and, by extension, his artistic development in this new era.

“When I moved here, I think I had three projects, but altogether I had less than 25 songs out. I ain't even put in the reps, you know what I'm saying? Curry been in the gym how many times? He put up how many shots at night?.. I needed to put my head down and really work on the craft.”

His two most recent singles, “that’s not sugar, it’s salt” and “ilovedyouwaymore”, genuinely reflect the results of this mindset; across the two tracks’ languid instrumentals Nic. presents a renewal of confidence that allows him to expound his emotions in more dynamic and nuanced fashion..

As Nic. continues to grind and grow as an artist, he’ll certainly be one to watch.

Read More
Artist Profile: Fatboi Sharif
Artist Profile: Fatboi Sharif

Fatboi Sharif, who represents one of the most unique and harrowing voices in modern hip-hop, has been continuously attracted to the power latent in music, its capacity to bring out an inner, withheld emotion from both the listener and the artist, since he was a child.

Artist Profile: Nuclear Monkey
Artist Profile: Nuclear Monkey

Nuclear Monkey, the indie band masterminded by Richmond-based songwriter Nate Neuwirth, has now oscillated between the intimate settings of home studios and the explosive, improvisational settings of live shows for almost four years and, somewhere in between, has found a distinctly unique medium: one that takes jazz-riddled tastes and sensibilities and injects them into the very veins of their stripped-back, indie sound.

Artist Profile: Drug Bug
Artist Profile: Drug Bug

Drug Bug, the newest solo project of the Alberta-based, shoegaze-tinged pop act behind both Star Starer and Willy Rodriguez, has only existed for just over a year and, in the course of its emergence, has already logged two excellent projects, representing both the slowly-growing artistic confidence and the new sonic directionality of their creator.

Artist Profile: Xindiex
Artist Profile: Xindiex

XindieX, the explorative indie artist from Martinsburg, West Virginia, came to music relatively late in life, as a result of a devastating football injury that left a void in his heart, and, as he experienced a growing passion for music and the fading of his youth simultaneously, a unique sound, born from the crucible of reverb-soaked indie and saturation-laden post-punk, was born.

Artist Profile: Twelve Point Buck
Artist Profile: Twelve Point Buck

Twelve Point Buck, the Australian-based band, has been led in its genre-oscillation by the ever-evolving ideas of its frontman, Dad, since its inception in the late high-school bedroom fuzziness of its founder, and, since, has made its name intertwining the eviscerating guitars of post-rock with the lo-fi saturation of the last decade’s most prolific indie acts, constantly pursuing a north star embodied by an amorphous and ambiguous sonic landscape.

Artist Profile: Feller
Artist Profile: Feller

Feller, the rock trio based in Chicago, Illinois, has been formulated and shaped through their roots that spread throughout Chicago’s extensive music scene, and, now, as they approach the release of their second project, they have found a new and expansive creative work flow, leaning on each other’s strengths while pushing their work as a whole outside of their collective comfort zone.

Artist Profile: Wieuca
Artist Profile: Wieuca

Wieuca, the genre-transient rock band based in Atlanta, Georgia, has undergone a number of permutations, spurred by the purity and flexibility of its various musicians, and, now, as they work toward their next album, they have found a sense of constancy through their experimentations, etching out yet another unique sound as they enter a fresh creative rebirth.

Artist Profile: Zekke
Artist Profile: Zekke

Zekke, the multi-faceted artist from Malaysia, has spent the few short years of his music career balancing his ever-shifting tastes and the stylization of his output, but, now, as he has become more comfortable within his own abilities, he feels as though he has struck a perfect balance within his artistic niche, with his new EP, “Render”, serving as a representation of the new directionality of his sound.

Artist Profile: E.R. Visit
Artist Profile: E.R. Visit

E.R. Visit, the solo artistic project of ½ of @ Stone Filipczak, represents a fresh effort, and an ever-growing archive, of the sonic experimentations and yearnings of its creator, repurposing songs that have fallen out of the band’s creative flow into their own entities, and, as he works toward his first album under this new alias, Filipczak has gotten the opportunity to expand the acoustic songwriting roots that led him to fall in love with this creative process in the first place.

Artist Profile: Nik Dandelion
Artist Profile: Nik Dandelion

Nik Dandelion, the German-born and Barcelona-based indie artist, has been imbibed with a profound sense of acoustic rawness and sonic interplay since the earliest roots of his creative formation, and, since he has forged out a path as a solo artist in the past few years, has found himself with more and more of a passion for experimentation, crafting simultaneously sublime and haunting tracks that exist in a sort of subliminally curious plane of sound.

Artist Profile: Ash the Author
Artist Profile: Ash the Author

Ash the Author, the Chicago-born, lyrically and melodically-inclined rapper, has known his calling since he was just a teenager experimenting with a free DAW, and now, as he has matured both personally and artistically, he is ready to settle into his full creative form, flexing the prowess he has gained from years and years of dedication to his craft.

Artist Profile: Roy Rutto
Artist Profile: Roy Rutto

Roy Rutto, the Kenya-born, California-raised, and Arizona-based hip-hop artist, has been stretching the limits of his sound since he first fell into music as a medium of expression, and, with each successive release, has simultaneously grown increasingly comfortable and decidedly unsated, carving out his own, inimitable lane through the unceasing march of his creative energy.

Artist Profile: Handsome Shirt
Artist Profile: Handsome Shirt

Handsome Shirt, the Melbourne-based indie pop duo comprised of childhood friends Louis Lam and Ellis Bartholomew, has served not only as a creative outlet but as a sonic representation of the friendship between its two founders since 2020, and now, with the release of their debut EP “Blossom” in August, they have taken a definitive step forward as a group, releasing a cohesive body of work that prefigures what is ahead for the emerging duo.

Artist Profile: Nu Fvnk
Artist Profile: Nu Fvnk

Nu Fvnk, the Nairobi-based alternative artist and genre-transient producer, has been enamored with music and its potentialities since he was a child listening to his mom’s collection of CDs, but, now, as he continues to actualize his output and push the boundaries of his distinctly East African sound, both his prowess and his obsession have reached entirely new levels, cementing him as one of the most exciting Kenyan artists to watch at this moment.

Artist Profile: Sheldon Sabastian
Artist Profile: Sheldon Sabastian

Sheldon Sabastian, the rapper reigning from Brampton, Canada, has known that hip-hop has been his calling since he was just a teenager experimenting sonically with his friends at school. Now, over a decade later, he still calls rap his home through the trials and tribulations of life, always fighting his way back into the act of creation and, in the process, leaving an expansive discography in his wake.

Artist Profile: Yonqi
Artist Profile: Yonqi

Yonqi, the LA-based hip-hop producer who reigns from the sullen plains and swooping peaks of Idaho, has been making music within his community, which includes rappers of such quality as ZekeUltra and Elijah Bank$y, for almost a decade now. Yet, as he continues to progress in his nuanced understanding of the unpredictability of sound, his instrumentals, and the manner in which his collaborators are able to embody them, have become more and more singularly advanced.

Artist Profile: Way Dynamic
Artist Profile: Way Dynamic

Way Dynamic, the Melbourne-based indie artist, has oscillated between an orchestral serenity and an obfuscating simplicity throughout his short discography, and, now, with the release of his newest project Massive Shoe, has added another sonic notch to his belt: a direct forward step propelled by his distinct creative process.

Artist Profile: Cantrips
Artist Profile: Cantrips

Cantrips, the genre-transient indie artist based in Melbourne, has been at work perfecting his approach to music as a craft for years, and, now, he has announced his entrancing arrival as a solo artist with the release of From a Darebin Cave: eight tracks that serve as an introduction to the pure idiosyncrasy of his creative mind.

G.C. Bellchamber
Previous

Artist Profile: Child Actor
Next

Artist Profile: Gus Englehorn