In his music, you'll hear him say it in every album he drops. And every few turns in conversation, he's going to say the phrase "the super hard way" seemingly without ever really noticing how often he says it. It's a convenient catchall to describe the long and profoundly thorny road that he's been on since 1993. But if anyone's earned the right to talk about the super hard way, it's Pepperboy. Now in his mid-30s, things are finally looking up for the long-overlooked cult rapper's career, with a single that's slowly growing viral on YouTube, a few still-fresh endorsements from Spin and The Fader and a rising reputation as the unlikely elder statesman of the emerging "cloud rap" genre.