Photo via Dana Coppafeel
Few have watched Milwaukee’s hip hop scene grow and change while maintaining a presence more than Dana Coppafeel. A veteran of the scene since Rusty Pelicans’ rise to fame, Coppa has been part of the ever-changing sounds of Milwaukee in several groups and continues to adapt with his first solo project in over a decade, Lowifi. As the title suggests, the EP infuses hip hop with elements of the lo-fi sound that has grown in popularity, in many ways taking things back to the jazzier, “golden-era” sound of the mid-to-late ‘90s. Coppafeel teamed up with long-time collaborator and producer Charley Cooks to create the sound of the project, his first body of work since 2018’s A Tape Called Fresh in collaboration with Vincent Van Great. The process of creating music can be overwhelming, and it took some readjustment to get the project in motion.
“The whole Lowifi thing is kind of about the connection being low” said Coppafeel. “I felt disconnected from the scene, or where things are now, and was kind of going through a transitional period. It felt like time to go into my own little cabin and focus on what makes me myself.”
Evolution has always been the name of the game for one of Milwaukee’s most versatile emcees in a genre that now moves at the speed of your internet connection. While many make claims to continually build, Dana has the music to back it up, with a litany of projects spanning the various eras of hip hop in the digital age. As of late, lyricism and gritty verses have been making a comeback, largely in response to the lackadaisical nature of commercial rap. Fortunately, that’s an element of Coppa’s game that has remained consistent.
“I’d make a few songs here and there, and some would get picked onto other projects or something like that, so I’d go back and add onto the stockpile” said Coppafeel. “Overall, it was fun and refreshing, and I kind of went about it differently once I started getting my groove back. I was writing a bunch to beats on YouTube, and then would go in the studio with Charley Cooks, and had a vision to do something people locally weren’t really doing. We were really going back to the roots of what made me like to make music.”
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With the genre moving faster than ever, there’s a feeling that Lowifi may be at the tail end of Dana Coppa’s discography. However, a follow-up is already finished, and should be released later in the year. Physical copies of the project are also on the way, in collaboration with Lost Voice Music based out of Colorado.
“I just want to make sure everything is good, and the follow through is tremendous” said Coppafeel. “I want to make the best records I can. I joke around with the label that this might be my first project with them and it may also be my last.”
