'Nottingham is a small city in the East Midlands ‘region’ of the UK and Local Healers, Louis Cypher and myself call it home. Claimed by neither the North nor South by a small country that regards this as important, those of us from here feel Northern. Cities with more cultural fame than us like Sheffield are as close as siblings in distance but somehow, Nottingham (or Notts) has generally got a swerve until very recently from the London-centric media gatekeepers. Due to this (alongside the high levels of deprivation, low(ish) rent and the historical self-image as a ‘rebel’ city) there has always been a thriving self-reliance about the city’s artists with a distinctly collaborative vein throughout and across the artistic disciplines. Metal-heads work with grime MCs, poets work with graffiti artists, everybody knows everyone or so it seems. City-wide, multi-venue festivals have become a regular occurrence and have fed heat and flavour into the creative broth but like all sectors in society right now, there are massive external pressures. The relentless Covid crisis, a Tory government who would love nothing more than to silence the progressive voices of change and an economic downturn of predictable pain has placed a burden on young people not seen in generations. This is where ‘Paintings On The Wall’ intersects.


“What happens when there’s no paintings on the wall?”
Local Healers comprise Ty Healy and Nay Loco and their ‘local’ rise has been equally unstoppable and intriguing with their mix of lyrical freshness, raw energy, visual identity and just plain graft. They don’t stop. Releases and collaborations, podcasts, videos, that classic hip hop cliche of hustle, but hustle you must. The quadruple threat of talent, vision, copious production and self-promotion are the mainstays of success in the game. For their third release, they’ve teamed up with a good friend of mine, Louis Cypher, a veteran of the city’s always fire MC scene, an OG member of 1st Blood, promoter and gravelly-voiced man about town. Together the lads decided to create a record under lockdown with an aim to reconnect senses, question their situation and just make some art.

“At the beginning of 2020, as we all collectively witnessed significant changes and traumas in our lives, the idea of being creative or making music any time soon, seemed like a distant dream to me. However, this project has proven just how valid art truly is. For its catharsis, its beauty and its ability to bring people together when that is what we needed the most.” - Louis Cypher

Left quietly in the background, the seven-track EP’s blend of 90bpm dope beats, warmly slick jazz samples and the unhurried flows of our heroes echo the mellower end of the 90s ‘golden age’ of ATCQ, The Pharcyde, De La Soul etc but delve in deeper and there’s something else happening. An uncompromisingly honest look at themselves, their people and the powers that be make this a historical note in this strange and demanding time we are all living through. The opening track and first single ‘Renaissance’ contains the EP title and is a love-letter to the Arts and in particular exploration of the creative and financial struggles, self-worth and daily doubts of those within this world delivered with a playful lightness of touch over Belgian producer Faux Sala’s guitar-sampled boom-bap beatscape.


‘Neva Left’ is a self-hyping call to arms, readying and steadying themselves to return to the live arena, rage against the tide of doom. ‘Pavement Cracks’ keeps up the theme of trying to stay positive and yearning for peace despite your vices “Two steps forward and one step back, stepping over dreams in the pavement cracks, searching for the answer in the bottom of the bottle, when you can’t find it, who’s to blame for that?”.


“Water For Flowers” is a candid and nostalgic look at self-growth (or not) and moving on over a lovely piano-looped groove, pure sunshine inner work going on. The three MCs voices and flows combining to great effect, their homegrown accents and tonal variations adding textures amongst the cerebral poetry. The bars on “Anti-Gravity Suit” rip and trip over the comparisons between escape and reality, a brief but bumping interstellar dream. “Guru” returns to the artist theme, lyrical plays around childhood memories and more dope-fuelled flashes of thought, somehow managing to name-drop Thomas the Tank Engine, Gang Starr, Hendrix, Carhart, Jean-Paul Sartre and The Daily Mail’s Paul Dacre!

The final track “Let Go” looks calmly and unflinchingly at racism in the UK, toxic friends, God, mental health and the uselessness of keeping the pain in over the most melancholic of jazzy guitar and beats. It’s a fine closer on a fine EP, everyone involved should be proud.

Released on Nott's label I’m Not From London’s hip hop sister label I’m Not From Brooklyn Records, ‘Paintings On The Wall’ is a worthy addition to any hip hop heads collection. This is local music for global people’.

- Justin Turford aka Ex Friendly - Truth & Lies

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Local Healers know the struggle of being an artist in pandemic-era Britain. They know about being ignored and pushed back, as the heart of the creative community gets slowly drained, a steady decline brought on by financial collapse, venue closures and cuts. Bringing a brand of lyrical consciousness that’s candid and cerebral, the Nottingham duo are joined in the studio by local legend Louis Cypher and Antwerp-based beatsmith Faux Sala. Together they combined forces to create Paintings On The Wall – an EP of chilled musical vibes, contrasting the raw lyrical themes contained within.

Renaissance has the classic golden era sheen that most of you reading this will have grown up with. It’s the lead single, and the best song on the EP. The downbeat tempo, the muffled guitar loop, the four-sentence group chorus. These are all key elements of what Local Healers are about – old school, relaxed moods. But they aren’t here purely for nostalgia. On Renaissance, they describe art as a dying form, one that needs to be kept alive at all costs. They take turns to jump in and out of the spotlight, delivering a couple of lines at a time and repeatedly ask “What’s it worth – auctioning your soul?” Renaissance is triumphant and proud. It’s about protecting something beautiful, before it goes away forever.

Paintings On The Wall carries on in much the same way. Pavement Cracks is reflective, not necessarily decrying the partying after-hours side of being a musician, but not saying it’s all that great either. With lines about drinking too much and having people over until 6am, Pavement Cracks describes the ambivalence and vague futility of day-to-day life when you can’t make plans past next month. It’s got a small hours jazz feel, like the first tune you put on after getting home from a big night. The boys are more than comfortable on tracks like this, with acres of space afforded to them by the economic musical backing.

A key theme on Paintings On The Wall is of self-love, and healing through growth. This is explicit on Water For Flowers. It’s a mature, self-aware set of verses that promotes healthy living, learning through experience, and cultivating good relationships with the people that matter most. The boys talk of their own life lessons, and offer advice on self care. It’s easily one of the highlights of the EP. The last few lines of the 2nd verse are particularly sweet – “I recommend – Buy some plants, put them on your shelves; every time you water them, you look after yourself. It takes time and effort, sunshine for better days, open up flowerbud, you’ll be amazed.”

Paintings On The Wall is lifted by Faux Sala’s consistently crafted beats. Each song has an unpretentious simplicity which never smothers the vocals. This means all three rappers on this project get generous airtime, and are prominent when they speak their truth. Aided by crisp, uncluttered production, this element of the sound on Paintings On The Wall cannot be understated – it’s what sets this EP apart from the sea of average rap records out there.

Ending with the super-easy Let Go, a melancholic song about moving on from tough times, Paintings On The Wall comes in for a smooth landing after half an hour of heady hip-hop purity. The music industry in the UK has taken a lot of heavy blows recently, and while Local Healers are bringing attention to that, they do it in an understated way. There’s more to life than the grey future laid out in front of us. Paintings On The Wall is a statement about how desperate and awful an existence without art would be. But it’s also a wholesome piece of work which, rather than angrily lashing out at the situation, offers gentle comfort. That’s something we all need a bit of in this day and age. The EP is out now on I’m Not From Brooklyn Records and available to buy on Bandcamp.

- Adam Davidson - Hard Of Hearing

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"The chemistry between Nay Loco & Ty Healy is already well documented as the duo now release their 3rd project together but when you add Mr Cypher Sore Eyes himself, Louis Cypher into the mix you get a whole other dimension added to the project, his style compliments the duo's so well and is a more than welcome addition. The EP is really enjoyable and each Emcee has bars for days, it's thought provoking, it's fun, it's a banger for sure.

This is 100% a work of Art, from the Heart.

Make sure you check it out...Notts in the building!"
- One9Ate7/ BoomBop.co.uk


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'The third release from Local Healers sees Nay Loco and Ty Healy team up with Louis Cypher and producer Faux Sala in a united front to support the arts sector – specifically the localised scenes. The full EP comes out in January, but first single Renaissance offers a taste of what’s to come in December; a multi-layered, warm, melodic EP, using jazz instrumentals that hark back to the creatives the work aims to big up, with clear-crafted lyrical flows to make their point clearly.'
- Eileen Pegg / Leftlion Magazine


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'In their latest EP The Paintings on the Wall, Nottingham boys Local Healers and fellow Notts veteran Louis Cypher team up to remind us all of just how important the arts are in tough times. Commenting on the lack of Government funding and outrage in light of the ‘Rethink, Reskill, Reboot’ campaign, the collection of tracks reinforce the value of the arts industry, a community which the Government has essentially turned its back on.

Despite the EP positioning itself as a bright celebration of the arts with its jazz-infused lo-fi instrumentals provided by Belgian producer Faux Sala, the boys aim to evoke a deeper sense of introspection on the importance of art in a society where everything else seems restricted. The opening track ‘Renaissance,’ released as a single on December 4th, poses the question “what happens when there’s no paintings on the wall?”

Through the homage to the title of the EP, the boys ask us to consider the importance of the arts and culture in our society. Indeed, the metaphor for the wider reflection of the arts on society speaks to the majority who have found respite in artistry at some point during this year – the track reminds listeners of the potency of creative expression, now more than ever. As Loco, one half of Local Healers put it, the track “explores the current and possible future struggles for all kinds or artists.”

The EP has an extra focus on mental health, exploring the idea of the daunting nature of many of the rules and regulations we have been subject to in 2020. ‘Water for Flowers’ promotes the deliberation of growth through its references to photosynthesis and moving on from past relationships. The tune highlights the retrospective outlook on individual progression, an acknowledgement of the “collective significant changes and traumas in our lives” Cypher recognises over the past year.

Local Healer’s raw 90’s Hip-Hop style and high energy, teamed with Cypher’s lyrical prowess creates a perfect canvas for the fanatic positive premonition in ‘Neva Left.’ The repeated chant, “Ayo I’m back up in this bitch like I never left!” serves as a reminder of good things to come, a prelude to when we can finally get back to revelling in the music scene in the flesh.

With Cypher’s long-standing history on the Notts hip-hop scene, and Local Healers having endlessly performed throughout 2019, it’s without a doubt that this collab will refuse to be stifled by the tough current climate for those in the arts. The Paintings On The Wall EP will be released on January 29th 2021, and if you can’t wait till then, you can stream the single ‘Renaissance’ from producer Faux Sala’s YouTube here. bit.ly/3ajaqVK '
- Darcy Nathan/ Tits Upon Tyne
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'From Dublin to Manchester, from Liverpool to Brum, hip-hop heads long and far are looking to see what the rest of the British isles have been cooking up in the kitchen after the spotlight being relentlessly and almost exclusively pointed at the capital.

As it so often happens in this city, local artists quickly become home-grown celebrities and these guys probably can’t walk through Market Square without being stopped at least twice.
For some, that may be enough but I really hope that these guys use their latest project to trampoline bounce their way into national or — heck — international fame.

On the surface, this record is pleasing to the ears and could easily be listened to in its entirety at your family pic-nic in the park. Antwerp-based producer Faux Sala has come through with an irresistibly smooth blend of classic golden-age jazz-rap sounds and those ‘Lo-fi music to study to’ videos on YouTube.

Skipping along this Nujab-esque cloud of sunshine lies the poignant message of Paintings on the Wall. Directly relevant to 2020 and all of its fuckeries, this project has the government’s pandemic performance in its sights and, dare I say, shots have been fired!

There’s no pretension here, just love and realness. That’s all we need.
- Liam Macgregor/ Big Mac Reviews


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“This project is dedicated to creatives everywhere to let them know that even when the powers that be want us to pack it up, we should keep adding colour to this grey looking world. Each song is its own mural the more you take in, the more you take away from it.”
- Ty Healy

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More than anything, it’s a tribute to the Arts and to those who pursue them. A tribute to those who have been shafted by Johnson & Co. after, let’s face it, being exploited and paid minimally for a tremendous outpouring of work. These people continue to live, breathe and eat music at all costs because it is what they love, it’s their life and Cypher and the Healers want these livelihoods to be acknowledged.
“Paintings On The Wall’ Came about after thinking about each individual track as a work of art, within that we explore the current and possible future struggles for all kinds or artists.”
- Nay Loco

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It’s a heart-warming hug being extended to all creators out there who are being confronted with an existential threat to their vocation and livelihood by the current pandemic and the Conservative government’s handling of it. Art is not a hobby, it’s a lifestyle that, for so many, makes life worth living. That’s not to be taken lightly.
“At the beginning of 2020, as we all collectively witnessed significant changes and traumas in our lives, the idea of being creative or making music any time soon, seemed like a distant dream to me. However, this project has proven just how valid art truly is. For its catharsis, its beauty and its ability to bring people together when that is what we needed the most.”
- Louis Cypher