No I.D. Teases New Cocaine 80s Project Coming This Year

No I.D. has been running a tight ship over at Def Jam ever since becoming the Executive Vice President of A&R back in late 2014, but we haven't gotten much output from his passion project Cocaine 80s since then. That looks like it's gonna change this year, however, because early today No I.D. teased a new Cocaine 80s project on Instagram to come later this year.

No I.D. helmed Common's Nobody's Smiling in 2014 as well as executive producing Logic's Def Jam debut Under Pressure from the same year and Vince Staples' debut LP Summertime '06 in 2015. His ARTium Records imprint on Def Jam is home to Common, Jhene Aiko, Vince Staples, and Elijah Blake.

Cocaine 80s, on the other hand, is a mysterious group of musicians centered around the Chicago producer who had a major early influence on Kanye West. James Fauntleroy is the lead singer of the crew, which has released 4 EPs (The Pursuit EP, Ghost Lady EP, Express OG EP and The Flower of Life), the last of which dropped in January of 2013. Def Jam was allegedly supposed to collect those EPs into one massive project called Hermes Trismegistus last summer, but it never surfaced.

The collective has also made appearances on Nas' Life Is Good ("Where's The Love"), "Higher" from Cruel Summer, and Common's "The Neighborhood" and "Young Hearts Run Free" from Nobody's Smiling.

In an interview with L.A. Weekly, No I.D. talked about the origins of Cocaine 80s. “Cocaine just means dope or good, however you want to use that metaphor. For me, the ’80s was great because you had Boy George, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Prince and Cyndi Lauper. No one put boxes saying this is urban, this is popular, this is underground. It was just good or bad.”

“My entire approach is built on the idea that things can be commercial and artistic,” he continued. “It’s written from a real songwriting perspective, not caring about genre, and finding a way to fit it into the current climate without compromising its intention.”

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