Remedy For Paranoia is a Dallas various hip-hop collective.
Kathy Tran / courtesy of the artist
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Kathy Tran / courtesy of the artist
Right this moment, NPR Music crowns Remedy For Paranoia because the winner of the twelfth annual Tiny Desk Contest. Fronted by Dallas-based rapper and music instructor Cameron McCloud, Remedy For Paranoia is the choice hip-hop undertaking of McCloud and producers Tomahawk Jonez and Jay Analog. Their profitable track, “No Brainer,” gained over the judges with its witty lyricism and robust, artistic imaginative and prescient.
Celia Gregory, a choose from WNXP, NPR’s music station in Nashville, says that the mixture of a locked-in band and star emcee was the “it-factor” for her: “It is the rhymes and the rizz for me, but in addition the general drive of the track and the horns.”
NPR Music host Robin Hilton was additionally struck by McCloud’s magnetism: “He is a next-level performer who writes the form of songs that get caught in your head and will not let go,” he says. “An ideal mixture of catharsis, humor and humanity.”
KUTX host Alex Marrero in Austin, and artist Madison McFerrin agree that “No Brainer” is in contrast to any of the greater than 6,000 different entries they noticed. McFerrin calls the track “infectious, contemporary and distinctly theirs” and Marrero says “when this popped up, I instantly felt one thing totally different.”
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McCloud’s journey with the Contest goes again to 2023, when he first submitted his track “Unbothered.” Since then, he is surprised the judges with standout entries which have made their annual Prime Shelf sequence, which options the perfect entries, yearly.
In his first entry, McCloud shared that he had been identified with bipolar dysfunction and paranoid schizophrenia. “I discovered that making music was far more useful than any medicine they put me on,” he mentioned. “And the primary cause why we do that is so that each time we step on stage or are available contact with anybody, they really feel 10x extra assured than they did earlier than.”
That sentiment spoke to guage Alynda Segarra, a singer who performs as Hurray for the Riff Raff, once they featured Remedy For Paranoia’s third entry, “The Artshow,” on Prime Shelf in 2025. “The identify is so genius,” mentioned Segarra. “He is saying that that is my treatment, that is my therapeutic instrument and this music and artwork helps me get via one thing — there’s such vulnerability with this presence.”
After Remedy For Paranoia did not win in 2023, McCloud says that he studied previous winners’ entries to raised perceive what goes right into a profitable track. And final yr, McCloud dedicated to his craft by spending day by day of 2025 writing a brand new rap verse, most of which went into the lyrics of “No Brainer.”
For NPR Music host Bobby Carter, who says Remedy For Paranoia is destined to be a pressure within the music trade, this win was a very long time coming: “For 4 years, Cameron and the crew have wowed us with creativity and flexibility and I am unable to wait to see what they convey to the Tiny Desk!”
Quickly, Remedy For Paranoia will play their very own Tiny Desk live performance in Washington, D.C., after which embark on a nationwide tour. You’ll be able to hear from McCloud himself on All Issues Thought of later at present, and get tickets to the Tiny Desk Contest On The Street tour on the Contest web site.