“I feel like I’ve had a whole other career in my previous lifetime and this release is my rebirth. I feel that in every fiber of my bones,” says Steve N. Clair, the hybrid hip-hop artist behind Aight, Bet, a new set of rap-centric songs that bridge the gap between his former and future self.
Originally from St. Louis, Clair now resides in Atlanta, Georgia, where he works as a photographer, videographer, and musician to build worlds for others to explore. His latest album, Aight, Bet, offers a kaleidoscopic sonic palette filled with contributions from old friends, longtime collaborators, and even family members.
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“Hip-hop is just the tip of the iceberg of what I listen to,” says Clair, who grew up in a musical family with an adventurous upbringing.
From his piano-playing grandmother to his older brother Keith—a music producer who works under the name Klick Klack—Clair recalls growing up in a lively household where someone, usually a parent, was always singing or playing an instrument.
Says Clair: “‘70s soul music has a real special place in my heart. I collect ‘70s records to this day.”
Inspired by artists such as Heatwave, Parliament-Funkadelic, and Stevie Wonder, a young Clair joined his school orchestra and concert band to play violin and percussion, respectively. While he was learning music theory and composition, a chance meeting with future rapper and producer Preston Bradley in the sixth grade set Clair on a fateful path toward making hip-hop in earnest.
“[Bradley] would come over to my house and make mixtapes on my brother’s tape deck, and we also used an old computer mic. We would be rapping over old Alchemist beats and doing things like that all throughout high school,” Clair says.
Even after graduating and moving to different universities, the pair continued to make music together and eventually formed The Domino Effect, a seminal hip-hop duo that made an indelible mark on St. Louis. Bradley, also known as Cue ColdBlooded, is a prolific recording artist and producer whose work has enriched the music community in myriad ways.
“The way we do production, I can kind of talk through [Bradley] musically. He can make the skeleton of a beat and I can hear that and say what I’m feeling,” Clair says. “We definitely try our best to create sounds that are true to us—a product you can only get from us.”
The Domino Effect released its debut album, Ink Clouds, in early 2009 and started performing live soon after. The duo made up for their lack of experience onstage with unbridled passion and a broad goal of breaking musical boundaries. Clair recalls the first Domino Effect set at the former Fubar as a pivotal moment.
“I flipped out at that show because they cut the music on our set. I lost it. I stormed out throwing chairs. I was super excited for [the concert] and everything. I went back to the drawing board after that,” he says.
Like many young musicians starting out, the duo cut their teeth on pay-to-play concerts where artists were expected to sell a certain number of tickets or pay the difference. While Clair wonders if they were getting scammed back then, The Domino Effect quickly moved on to more fitting opportunities and built a fan base by performing its soulfully skewed hip-hop. The pair reached new creative heights with the release of ExpressWAY in 2010, an album that also served as a teachable moment for Clair.
“I’m a very confident person. Every time I think, It’s the one, and then put it out. I get excited, you know? This [record] taught me don’t just pay attention to the finish line, you gotta fall in love with the path,” Clair says.
Although Clair was still attending Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, The Domino Effect kept a tight concert schedule and continued making new music at a consistent pace. Their 2011 album IRRELEVANT saw the duo transition from what Clair calls “user-friendly” lyrics to singing about more controversial topics such as the Black struggle and politics.
“That’s when we started getting the eyes of the guys from SLUM Fest. Once they started paying attention, that really took our career to the next level. They definitely put a lot of eyes and ears on us,” Clair says.
Comprised of elder statesmen from the local hip-hop scene, the SLUM Fest cohort highlights artists in the St. Louis music community through an annual awards show and local showcase. Clair credits SLUM Fest for landing The Domino Effect an opening spot for legendary rapper Talib Kweli and signal boosting their 2012 studio album, In Due Time.
After completing college and moving back to St. Louis, Clair got to work with Bradley on UNKNOWN, a complex and sociopolitical album that eventually released in 2014 to critical acclaim in both local publications and tastemaker blogs beyond the river city. The track “Ground Zero” stands out as a sharply on-point summation of the collective sadness and fury in Ferguson following the fatal shooting of Michael Brown.
“[UNKNOWN] was definitely a pivotal project for us. Now we’re playing SXSW in Austin, A3C in Atlanta, SLUM Fest, and Riverfront Times Music Showcase,” he says.
While The Domino Effect was firing on all cylinders, Clair opted to look inward for his next project. Released in 2015, The Introspections of Steve N. Clair offered the rapper’s first full-length solo album complete with an eccentric, genre-blending approach to production. While the record was initially dropped on digital platforms, a physical “deluxe” edition with additional music was later released.
“I’m a record collector, and I love to do stuff like hidden material. We did a release at Vintage Vinyl with hard copies and sold out the first day,” Clair says.
In 2016, The Domino Effect put out Satellites, an 8-song EP that builds on the duo’s musical canon of alternative hip-hop with densely layered compositions. Satellites stands as the eighth recorded project for The Domino Effect since its debut in 2009, but the project would be the duo’s last until 2021.
“If you listen to my body of work, I try to create worlds within each EP, album. It’s super important to me to stick out in some way with production,” Clair says.
In addition to his output as a musician, Clair is also an accomplished photographer and videographer whose pieces have been shown internationally. In 2018, Clair was invited to put together an exhibition for kma71, an experimental art space in Berlin, Germany. Titled monochrome, the show featured a curated set of black-and-white photos alongside a screening of Clair’s short film Canfield: Before the Ferguson Unrest.
“I had no motive in mind originally. I was just going to bring my camera and that day was the day all of the uprising started. I captured powerful footage and put together the documentary. Canfield changed my life,” he says. Clair even traveled to Berlin to perform an impromptu set at the end of the exhibition.
“I flew over there by myself. I was nervous, I ain’t gonna lie to you. That was definitely a life-changing experience. I ended up getting on an indie radio show, too,” says Clair.
In late 2018, a career opportunity pulled Clair to Atlanta. He credits the trip overseas as being influential to the move but ultimately counts the relocation as a necessary step for personal growth.
“I was in the midwest for 30 years, and I still connect to St. Louis. When I came to Atlanta, it was like starting at the ground level. I was going to open mics, poetry slams, getting myself out there talking to people. I’m down here waving that St. Louis flag for sure,” Clair says.
While COVID-19 affected musicians across the globe, Clair went through what he solemnly recalls as a dark time in his life. When illness led to the untimely passing of his father in early 2020, Clair found himself dealing with grief and loss in an era when a global pandemic made connecting harder than ever.
“There was a period where I was kind of ghosting. I was literally living in the past and it just got to a point where I looked up and realized that time is really passing me by,” Clair says. Despite the challenges, he and Bradley joined forces in 2021 to release All The Stars, Ain’t In Hollywood, the latest album by The Domino Effect to date.
“I cant stay stagnant and not create, that would eat me up inside. I gotta be throwing paint on the canvas. Whether it’s one person or one million people paying attention, I’m here,” Clair says.
To wit, Clair continues to be prolific. He considers his new solo album, Aight, Bet, to be like an appetizer platter where each song represents one of his many experiments in hip-hop. With production credits split between his brother Klick Klack and Bradley from The Domino Effect, the songs on Aight, Bet carry his musical heritage into the future.
“Something randomly comes up that puts a damper on your day. Instead of trying to go around each obstacle, I’m gonna take it head on. When something happens, I always find myself saying ‘aight, bet.’ It’s like a mantra, so I created a whole project around that,” Clair says.
After a pop-up listening party in Atlanta and teaser-style videos made by director Jon Alexander, Aight, Bet dropped in early March with a bit of hype and a bump in streaming numbers over past releases. With this new set of songs out in the wild, Clair plans to perform a short tour that includes Atlanta, Chicago, and of course, a return to St. Louis. After that? New music is on the way.
“Of course I want to perform these songs in front of thousands of people and travel this beautiful world,” he says. “But at the end of the day, it’s really about leaving my scriptures and creating something that people can feel.”
