Eight Gigs: Isaiah Rashad

Isaiah Rashad embodies a new American dream. The college dropout lived on friends’ couches, worked fast-food and recorded songs obsessively in his free hours. He put that music on Soundcloud, and by 2014 he’d signed to Top Dawg Entertainment, home of Kendrik Lamar and Schoolboy Q, and released his debut Clivia Demo. That record disguised as a demo debuted at number 40 on the Billboard Top 200. Raised in Tennessee, Rashad’s drawl meshes with the California inflections he’s picked up. The result is a bluesy delivery that binds history to his tales of poverty, anxiety and transcendence. 2708 J Street, https://soundcloud.com/isaiah_rashad.