Nathan Nice

From the rolling hills, steep cliffs and hidden staircases of Echo Park emerges L.A.-native Nathan Nice, a hip-hop recording, performance and visual artist who is definitely not your typical emcee. Demonstrating that there’s much more to hip-hop than the mainstream’s ‘round the clock rotations—he offers a potent mixture of thoughtful-lyricism, energetic production and an emphasis on improvisation and spontaneity. Nathan Nice truly embraces the historical versatility that the hip-hop genre offers, something people sometimes forget ever existed.

Nathan Nice, born Nathan Harvey Kayser, grew up as the eldest son of an artist and a politically active LAUSD science teacher in Echo Park in the 1980's, all of which made for a powerful combination of influences. The household soundtrack mostly consisted of classic and psychedelic rock, which Nathan could appreciate, but never felt a strong gravitation towards. His love affair with music was truly sparked in the fourth grade when he was hanging out, drawing comics with a few neighborhood friends and someone twisted the radio dial to the first West Coast-based hip-hop station, KDAY AM 1580, back when Greg Mack was still its executive music director. KDAY’s towers were broadcasting just one hill from his house, in the heart of Chavez Ravine. What he heard that day was a much clearer version of what he'd already heard before—beats and rhymes that had long been playing faintly over conversations and the dial tone on his family's house phone and even from the gutters when it rained; (yes, he was living that close to the signal!) Thus witnessing what was the birth of hip-hop on the West Coast, Nathan felt an immediate urge to broadcast his own signals from the hill. From that moment on, he consumed hip-hop like it was fresh water. He bought tapes, built rhymes, studied beats and performed often, so that he could one day make his own worthwhile contribution.
With two full length albums, an E.P. and a myriad of singles and live performances under his belt, its possible to admit that he is indeed on his way towards reaching that goal. Currently working as a graphic designer for The Hundreds Is Huge Inc. in Los Angeles and still fresh off an 18-city U.S. tour with half of the legendary hip-hop crew The Pharcyde, (Fatlip & Tre Hardson), he's up to his eyeballs in new projects—including a brand new, full length album of unreleased Brontosaurus collaborations entitled, The Rummage Sale; the debut album of Pilots on Auto with San Francisco-based hip-hop artist 1865; his first vinyl release with veteran Los Angeles emcee Orko Eloheim (The Sycotik Alien) and a tour to Tokyo, Japan with Sirah One, 1865 and Turtle of Learning Curve slated for November 2010.
Nathan Nice has done all of this without the aid of a record label, manager, booking agent or publicist, but rather with the overwhelming support of his friends, fans and fellow artists world-wide. Making, writing and performing music to enrich the lives of others has truly given Nathan purpose to his own life—and his main focus, and long-held dream, is to travel this planet doing just that.
Nathan Nice is blessed to have shared stages with such artists as Fatlip & Tre Hardson (The Pharcyde), Percee P (Stones Throw Records), Murs, Eligh and Scarub (Living Legends), Aceyalone, Micah 9, Abstract Rude (Project Blowed), Nocando (Alpha Pup Records), Dumbfoundead, I Am Omni, Sleep (Old Dominion), Black Bird (Alpha Pup Records), Acid Reign (Alpha Pup Records), Medusa, Crag Malkovich, Himself, Live Radio, Phoenix Orion, Sirah, Ivan Ives and many others.
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