Field Notes / Nebraska Hip-Hop

Nebraska Rappers

November 8, 2026 7 min read

Who I'd tell you to listen to in Lincoln and Omaha, on my label and off it.

Nobody is checking for Nebraska rap. No A&R flies into Omaha. No blog has a Lincoln correspondent. That used to bother me. It doesn't anymore. It means the people still doing this here are doing it because they love it, and nobody is sanding the edges off to get picked.

People ask me who to listen to out here. I give them three names, they forget two in the parking lot. So here it is written down.

Quick background, so you know the mouth it's coming from. I grew up in North Platte. Started making beats in 2001. Put out Style X in 2002. I have run Killing Field Records out of Lincoln since September 2019, first with my brother, now without him. I mix and master at The Fields every week. I have shared bills with most of these people. I have recorded some of them. This is not a list I scraped off the internet.

Some of these are on my label. Most are not. Alphabetical, not a ranking. Do not text me about the order.

BXTH

BXTH, two people

Two guys from Omaha. Scky Rei raps, INFNTLP makes the beats. Lyricism first, everything else after.

They went quiet long enough that I wrote them off. Then this fall, "I Got Up" and "Witch Hunt." They call Witch Hunt a musical installment and ask you to take it as art. So do that. Do not put it on while you clean the kitchen.

DOLO.

DOLO.

DOLO. is from South Sudan, and he works out of Lincoln. He is not on my label. He is a client at The Fields, and he might be the busiest one I have got.

He has recorded more songs with me than my whole label put together. I have mixed three of his albums, all the way through, and a fourth one is on the way. Then I almost left him off this list because I forgot to write his name down. That is on my memory, not on his work. The man has taken up more of my board time than anybody in this post.

He's on Instagram, at itsdoloandcompany.

Eliphas

Eliphas

Eliphas had our studio space before we did. We took it over, turned it into The Fields, and that is how I met him, around 2021. Homie ever since.

He produced our John 13:7 single and did beats on the enemyX album. He raps too. That is him on "Molotov" off Swimming. He works with half of Lincoln and was involved in J Dreams' Lincoln Exposed set this year.

He does not promote himself much. You find him in the credits. Read the credits.

enemyX

enemyX

This one is me and Jinx, so weigh it however you want. We started enemyX in 2021 and cut our teeth in online cypher communities long before there was an album.

The album came out July 19, 2024. A concept record about a serial killing duo. Made at The Fields. Production from Eliphas, Dirt Nasty Beats, Mackey and Captain VIII. Features from Kid Corduroy, Sugar Cones, Komatose, STOOKY, Surreal the MC and Conway the Machine. It is the coldest thing either of us ever made.

HAKIM

HAKIM

HAKIM was a hooper first. Standout at Lincoln High, then a prep school in North Carolina chasing college offers. He picked music over basketball and never looked back. At least eight albums deep. Start with Cream of Crop 2.

He was part of J.Period's Art of the Crossfade live mixtape show when it came through town. That tells you the level.

J Dreams the Alien

J Dreams the Alien

J Dreams records here. I mixed his most recent album. Boom bap, lyrics first, and he can fucking rap.

He started in 2018 freestyling in the car with his friends. Two albums since. GLASS in 2022, PARACIDIC in 2024. Lincoln Exposed at the Bourbon three years running, and he always drags people up there with him. Rappers, producers, Eliphas.

In May he put on the first Bad Fruit Fest at Duffy's Tavern. More than 20 local hip-hop acts. Five in the afternoon to 2 a.m. Rap only. Sugar Cones played it. So did I. When he is not doing that, he is cutting hair at Cotner Barber Shop, which he co-owns.

Jinx

Jinx performing

My little brother, Anthony. Grew up in North Platte like me, moved to Lincoln in 2013. In 2016 he wrote what became the Book of Colors trilogy. Black, Sanguine, Gold. Numb, then furious, then something close to manic. Everything this label puts out gets measured against it.

We started Killing Field Records together on September 1, 2019. He died May 12, 2025.

Start with Black. Go in order. Do not skip ahead.

Kid Corduroy

Kid Corduroy

Omaha tattoo artist and rapper. We have done a lot of shows with him. His music is artsy and off-center, and right now he is in a hard, dark trap phase. It suits him.

Misfits is 27 tracks. He was on the bill when Ouija Macc brought the America's Most Wicked Tour to Omaha. He is on the enemyX album, and he is the feature on Populus' "Locked Up/Fucked Up."

King Iso

King Iso

Omaha. Signed to Tech N9ne's Strange Music. Probably the biggest rapper in the state, and he earned every bit of it.

He has never hidden where he came from. Homeless in Omaha. Locked up. Time in a mental institution. ISO was the name on the door of the solitary cell they kept him in. He read it as I Shall Overcome and took it with him when he got out. A lot of his music is about mental health, head on, no flinching. World War Me was his first on Strange, 2020. Then Get Well Soon, iLLdren, Ghetto Psycho.

He brought us out to open three of his shows. He did not have to do that. I do not forget shit like that.

Lane Gang Wells

Lane Gang Wells

Omaha, and the music is about the hustle. He has said he wants to put his city on the map. His words: "Let the world know Omaha got a voice, and it's me." I believe him when he says it. The delivery sells it.

Putting out music since at least 448 Baby in 2021. In November 2025 he dropped Million Grams Later, his first album on LLC4 Records, the label Orlando Wharton started. Deluxe version after. New to him, start with "Ticket Droppin'" with Rio Da Yung OG.

Marcey Yates

Marcey Yates

Marcey Yates is Omaha. He has been putting out records since Vanilla Sky and Social Studies in 2014. SPIN hears J Dilla in his production, and so do I. Chocolate For Water in 2023, 9 Months in 2024, House Rules in 2025, and Vanilla Sky II in February this year.

He has won five Omaha Entertainment and Arts Awards, including Album of the Year for Culxr House: Freedom Summer. In 2018 he founded Culxr House in North Omaha, a space for music, fashion, art, and civic work. SPIN profiled him in June.

Most people on this list built a catalog. He built a catalog, and a place for other artists to work out of.

Melo VI8E5

Melo VI8E5

Melo VI8E5 is from Lincoln, and he does drum and bass junglist hip hop. Nobody else on this list is in that lane.

I did not know him before Bad Fruit Fest in May. We played the same festival and he surprised the shit out of me. The Daily Nebraskan caught his Lincoln Exposed set with J Dreams in February and wrote that he brought an insane high-paced energy and got the crowd jumping. That tracks with what I saw.

He is at the Bourbon on November 27 with Plack Blague, if you want to see it live. I do not know a lot about him yet. I know enough.

Sleep Sinatra

Sleep Sinatra

Sleep Sinatra is a Lincoln MC. He produces too, under the name SINAI. He has been in the underground circuit for more than ten years, and he has shared stages with Slum Village, Count Bass D and Mach-Hommy.

Okayplayer, Hip Hop DX and The Wire have all written about him. He has been on Shade 45. TIMESOFPERIL came out in December 2025. He produced the whole thing himself on an SP404 and brought in Doseone, Nolan the Ninja and Breeze Brewin. If you caught J.Period's Art of the Crossfade here in October, he was on that bill too, same show as HAKIM.

Spend one record with him. That is the whole pitch.

Sugar Cones

Sugar Cones, Populus and Bagheadddd, performing

Populus and Bagheadddd. The weird, funny, uncomfortable side of this label. Bagheadddd used to shoot every photo with a paper bag over his head. His face is still blurred on every cover.

Swinging came out August 4, 2023, during Four Winds Music Festival. We played Reverb Lounge in Omaha that weekend to a nearly sold-out room. Swimming came out October 3, 2025 and it is a lot darker. The jokes are still there. Now they sound like coping. They played the first Bad Fruit Fest in May too.

Populus does solo singles too. "Red" with Bagheadddd. "Locked Up/Fucked Up" with Kid Corduroy.

Live

Bourbon Theatre in Lincoln. Waiting Room and Reverb in Omaha. We have played all three a lot. Lincoln Exposed takes over the Bourbon and half of downtown every February, and local rap gets real slots there now. Duffy's hosted Bad Fruit Fest this May.

Can't get to a show, KFRP Radio plays the whole roster 24/7. I am building a show for it called Nebraska Represent. Nebraska artists only.

Who I missed

People. I know I did. This is version one, and there are names that belong on here that I just forgot to write down. Not because they don't rate. Because my memory is shit. The list will grow.

You make rap in Nebraska and think you belong on it, send it to submissions@kfrp.live. I will listen.

– Cryptic-X

Listen here

Every artist on this list, on Spotify and Apple Music.

DOLO. is on YouTube only. He is not on Spotify or Apple Music.