In February 2016, cloud rap pioneer Yung Lean released Warlord , his last album to use the online hip-hop style that originally earned him success. The half-industrial, half-heavenly record was recorded on the brink of a real-life meltdown; the substances Lean had rapped about so brazenly during his adolescent mixtape era would nearly claim his life. After reconciling with his demons, he moved away from cloud rap, and Warlord ’s ominous, haze-filled crashout became one of the last great releases of the style’s golden era, alongside Bladee ’s Eversince and Black Kray ’s Soulja Luv Rari World . Cloud rap never disappeared, but the party was over. Since 2023, smokedope2016 and his producers (bartesianwater and lilfittedcap) have presented an alternate timeline where cloud rap didn’t decline after the fabled “Summer ’16,” the year repped in the rapper’s Xbox Live gamertag-esque name.…