NAPPYNAPPA Interview

03/02/2022 4:07PM

So my first question is... are you hiding a child?

*busts out laughing* nahhh *continues to laugh*

Because on the song we were just listening to you refer to your daughter... you could just be really good at hiding

Yeah a lot of the homies have been having kids so it’s really just putting myself in their shoes and just the idea of being a child as well as taking care of a child, the responsibilities that you have to be cautious of.

So you’ve been around the world and performed all over the country but when I listen to your music. It’s always very DC, it’s always DC music, every everything you reference, it’s all DC. Most of your collaborators too are mainly from DC. Why do you prefer to do that as opposed to like, branching out and embracing a less regional sound?

I feel like in different aspects, I branched out. When it comes to personal projects, or just straight up NAPPYNAPPA projects I usually create them in DC and it feels like, not many people understand, what it’s like. DC is a major city, but it’s not like any other city. So it’s like a different aspect of existence that people experience living living here so it’s always easier to be on the same track with artists from here.

On one of the first tracks on the album you say “this is all takes place between Alabama and Geor- gia.” And, you know, that’s really what it brings me back to you saying, having that perspective makes it’s much easier to work together.

mhmmm

It seems you seem to have developed a language, like a written dialect and way communicating the english language, but in a way that is unique to you, Where that comes from?

A couple of places. Initially I would just misspell things the way I hear them. I, you know, Sasebo things, I hit them. Also, a lot of my family comes from South Carolina so looking at text from Gul- lah Geechee people, I don’t know, it’s kind of just like, it was kind of like innate that that was a way that I was texting as well

Because it’s all valid, right? Language is just something somebody else created and decided that that’s how something is going to be expressed.

Yeah, definitely. Thats just standard I mean we all speak English at the end of the day, let’s say if I was like, doing that and speaking Korean, would be some whole other shit. That’s definitely interesting, because some similar topics are covered at the end of Project Heroes.

Can you tell me who’s talking on that track?

Thats my homie Zack from high school He’s from DC as well

He was like dropping a lot of knowledge!

Yeah, I wouldn’t just label him as a poet, but he’s a he’s a poet and many, many other things, you know, but he goes hard with the words. He’s a wild ass chess player too

He says something about on how you know, Gabriel spoke to Moses in Hebrew and to Muhammad in Arabic, and it’s just the language of the soul and You’ve spoken about how Arabic & Amharic sym- bols are similar to the letters and characters used in Asian languages. What does language mean to you?

I mean, it’s it is all a form of communication. I was thinking about that shit today, there was a meme someone posted like maybe yesterday or two days ago and buddy was like “art critics be us- ing wild ass, words but my homie can explain shit in five seconds like ‘yeah this ain’t got no sauce’” and you just understand that. That’s the kill, I was watching something recently talking about us- ing big words and idioms for small meanings and none of that shit is always necessary. As long as the point is given. I feel like you can get things in great detail, you know, you can definitely do that as well. But like, some things are just like, like not that serious.

I definitely believe that as long as the message the intended message is received by the person that’s being given to then that language is clear.

I feel like that’s more due to intent than even like what you’re saying. Because some people will be like, Yeah, I’m saying all this shit and like, I’m yelling it at you, like a person be like, yo I’m not getting it. That’s the kill with kids and shit.

Do you think that suffering is necessary? In a world?

I don’t think suffering is necessary at all. I definitely think if you want to do things a certain way, in this world, it definitely is going to come with trials and shit, you know, difficulties. Because you’re kind of going against the current to an extent, but no, I don’t think suffering is necessary. Going back to how I type sometimes, I say some shit very clearly but people are like “I can’t read this”. nahhh, that’s just the way, you know, people just could give a fuck about how you going through shit in certain ways as well. You know, that doesn’t necessarily tax on yourself, you know? Some motherfuckers take shit like “ahhhh”

In that same sense, do you think that there would be that there can be good without evil?

Good without evil? Yeah. Yeah. I don’t think... I mean word-wise, those seem like two relative things as far as nature. Going back to intent, some things may be perceived as evil and some things perceived good, you know? Motherfucker could kick you in your ass and say thank you. They could do all types of shit, You know? So, it’s more so based on A: how the person on the receiving end and then the persons intent, doing whatever actions. I don’t think it’s necessary to say “this is evil/ this is good”. I think good just exists on its own.

Okay But do you think that we would be able to differentiate and know what good is if we didn’t know that, okay, this is evil.

Kids be prime examples of that. You know, they don’t know what the fuck it is that they may be doing. But it all stems from good nature, you know? I feel like good and evil, those two things exists for sure. I don’t think they exist based on each other. You can be good without evil being in- volved, without being opposed to evil or something.

That leads to like, the idea of suffering, it’s like, “why is this happening to me?” It’s the life you decided to live, what comes with it? More so than love for example. It’s not like, “you’re doing good, we’ve got to be evil”

The Film Baby Boy, why is it special to you?

In regards to a lot of these questions, it’s just the nature of a certain environment, a certain exis- tence, and all the things that transpire from that existence. It’s just one of those like we’ll watch something like Fences and that gets awards and shit and I’m like Baby Boy was damn near the same thing in nature. Just an untold story of niggas in California

Can you relate to Jody in any way?
I think? Yes, yes. But there’s aspects in which I don’t relate to at all. There are parts of every character I relate to, Yvette, Snoop Dogg, even Ving Rhames, the mother, all that.

I guess that’s kind of the the mark of a really good film, to be able to find those characteristics in different characters that you can connect with.

There’s some shit I had seen on Netflix recently too, it’s some people reviewing their favorite movies and shit. And one thing they were talking about was how people always say motherfuckers love someone with a bad story because people vicariously live through them. But then you don’t watch a movie with the intent of like this is a good person or this is as a bad person. You watch it and relate to whatever the fuck he believes in because you’re human and thats just what it is. So that movie just got the full spectrum of the human existence from the child to fucking Snoop Dogg

Have you watched any movies lately?

The last movie I watched for real that I haven’t seen before or decided to watch was Native Son, and I did not enjoy that movie. It was based on a book by Richard Wright, right? It’s a wild mov- ie. It’s a wild story. But then it’s not... I didn’t really like to move because, I don’t know, the dude Ashton Saunders. He can act in some things but that was, that wasn’t a good movie

Would you be in jackass?

Hell nah. I mean, I’d be a spectator in Jackass.

You wouldn’t do any of the stunts?

Ehhh nah. Maybe like real live, a single stunt but not like... oh no like I remember them eating horseshit and shit like that. I’m not about to eat no horseshit.

Would you do anything ball related?

Nahhh I fuck with Jackass though from the shows to the movies I remember going to the movies to see all them joints

ondamicunderdacozmiclytz marks your 13th solo album What story are you trying to tell with this album?

I’m not trying to say anything other than what I’ve been thinking and feeling through the past two years I guess, or however long it took me to make the joint. Because I’m like 25, I’m not 50 or something so this isn’t like a magnum opus

So its just another chapter in your book?

To a great extent yeah. I was fortunate enough to have certain a certain like consistency with the people that I worked with and that just made what I was trying to say and what I was trying to express that much clearer to me but I don’t feel like this is the end or nothing.

Absolutley. I wanted to point out how prolific you’ve been and continue to be as an artist it’s quite incredible the way that you you kind of like can switch gears between your personal stuff and your model home stuff and even your other collaborations

I don’t feel like they are any different either. I feel like the forms of how I’m able to express them are different but also like I’m not doing anything different necessarily Yeah. Other than just being able to sort of rock in this avenue or or do these tools, its like building anything, if I got clay if I got cement if I got wood, it’s gonna come out in many different ways.