San Antonio’s hip-hop scene has a fresh dose of nostalgia and nerdy charm thanks to Gross Angel, a local rapper who’s mixing nerdcore vibes with boom bap beats and a heavy dose of ’90s nostalgia. His music is a love letter to the past, packed with references to comic books, fighting games and childhood fandoms that shaped him.

“When I was like 10 or 11, I got an acoustic first act guitar. Like, real cardboard and hot glue kind of guitar. But it got me into playing and learning as many songs as possible,” he said. “So that’s where I got started. I’m a guitar player first. I was a rock dude all day, every day, 99.5.”

But it wasn’t long before his musical tastes expanded.

“The Gorillaz ‘Demon Days’ album is when I really started transitioning and listening to other kinds of music because I

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