Who the hell is Lushlife? That’s exactly what I asked when I caught wind of his rare “Order of Operations” record from 2007. Packed tight with beautiful Jazzy soundscapes and lush arrangements– this guy immediately got my attention.

Lush’s sizeable musical reach is as much a byproduct of the lessons learned train-wrecking beats for eager audiences, as it is a result of a strict and formal musical education. he has 13 years of classical piano training, having studied from the age of 5, along with an intense 7 year course in jazz kit drumming. along the way he’s arranged for jazz combos and performed on street-corners, at manhattan’s prestigious steinway hall and everywhere in between.

Lush went on to study music at university, where after a year spent crestfallen and destroyed, he got out of bed to turn hip-hop out.his first full-length, which lush thinks of as his ‘teenage symphony to hip-hop,’ blurs our sense of time by evoking emotions that we tie to hip-hop’s past whilst making a small step towards hip-hop’s future. written, produced, and performed entirely by the artist himself, ‘order of operations’ reveals lushlife’s optimistic vision of hip-hop.

Listen up and you might put on the rose-colored glasses too.

Below are two songs from his record ‘Order of Operations’. Don’t you dare sleep.

First single off of Atmosphere’s forthcoming album, “When Life Gives You Lemons You Paint That Shit Gold.” You’ll recognize the beat if you’ve been keeping up with the Paint it Gold YouTube episodes.

Please tell me you are bumpin’ these guys’ new album Time:Line? Smoothest record so far this year and I’m willing to bet an Album of the Year candidate when we start heading towards the finish line. It’s that serious.

Nicolay out does himself once again on the boards and proves he is one of the elite hip hop producers of the new generation, while Kay keeps it tight, consistent, and and wraps his words around Nicolay’s beats just as good as Phonte.

Below are two tracks from the new album. “What We Live” and “As the Wheel Turns.” You can find a review of the album here.

Download: Nicolay and Kay- What We Live

Download: Nicolay and Kay- As the Wheel Turns