Track By Track: NAPPYNAPPA – IFEELJUSTLYKTHEIRART

NAPPYNAPPA is an MC / rapper hailing from Washington DC. A relatively new & rising voice in leftfield hip-hop, NAPPA has become one of the most unique & prolific personalities to emerge from DC’s flourishing musical underground, another sharp prospect in an exceptional circle of peers & collaborators, comprising the likes of SIR E.U, Tony Kill & Rahiem Supreme. Landing somewhere between the conscious spoken word of early forebears like The Last Poets & the enterprising abstraction of contemporary outliers like Pink Siifu, MIKE & Sensational, NAPPA is a striking prospect. 

As part of the duo Model Home – alongside multimedia artist & producer Patrick Cain – NAPPA has featured on a stupefying heap of self-released material in the last two years, adding intricate, adrenalizing counterpoint to all the itinerant, abrasive backdrops cooked up by Cain. The unfettered energy & conspicuous development of the project has led to a celebrated outing on the Disciples label, in the form of an impeccably curated ‘showcase’ compilation titled ‘One Year’, as well as an acclaimed appearance on Max D’s DC institution Future Times, courtesy of ‘SE’, a record partly produced by Max D (under the Dolo Percussion guise) & shaped by ‘chicken sandwiches, global pandemics, mass murders, technological advances, & mankind’s hindrance’. 

Following all the Model Home action in 2020, NAPPA has miraculously found the time to issue another record, his first full length solo vinyl release. Entitled ‘IFEELJUSTLYKTHEIRART’ & with production handled by the likes of Paul White & Sporting Life, the album confronts the displacement of ancient African artifacts & Eurocentric conceptions of history, specifically an affair in which France refused to return stolen relics, artifacts, thrones & other historic objects to Benin. Using this incident as a springboard, NAPPA focalizes themes of identity, resistance & collective solidarity across nine tracks (& a trio of interludes), showcasing an agile lyricist with a pronounced inclination to colour outside the lines. Raw & unencumbered expression for the times we’re living in. Signaling a culmination of what NAPPA unloaded on previous solo excursions like ‘Obsolete’, ‘Autonomous’ & ‘Truth Won’t Save Us Now’, it’s a grand, provocative statement from an artist who seems to be in perpetual creative motion; a figure gravitating towards several fascinating directions at once. 

Here NAPPA provides a track-by-track breakdown of the album, delivered in his own singular vernacular…