#nosaj

[caltropspress]

RAPS + CRAFTS #27: Nosaj from New Kingdom

1. Introduce yourself. Past projects? Current projects?

Hello. My name is Jason Furlow and I’m professionally known as Nosaj from New Kingdom.

2. Where do you write? Do you have a routine time you write? Do you discipline yourself, or just let the words come when they will? Do you typically write on a daily basis?

I write in airports & empty bars.

I write drunk & edit sober.

I think about writing on a daily basis.

3. What’s your medium—pen and paper, laptop, on your phone? Or do you compose a verse in your head and keep it there until it’s time to record?

All of the above as well as napkins, cardboard, envelopes. 

I’ll treasure hunt my writings/cut & paste them until I locate what I wasn’t looking for and then when I’m walking my dog I’ll continuously simplify it in my head until it feels like a conversation.

4. Do you write in bars, or is it more disorganized than that?

From my disorganization my bars grow.

5. How long into writing a verse or a song do you know it’s not working out the way you had in mind? Do you trash the material forever, or do you keep the discarded material to be reworked later?

Immediately. Both.

6. Have you engaged with any other type of writing, whether presently or in the past? Fiction? Poetry? Playwriting? If so, how has that mode influenced your songwriting?

It’s all one continuous essay.

7. How much editing do you do after initially writing a verse/song? Do you labor over verses, working on them over a long period of time, or do you start and finish a piece in a quick burst?

I live to edit. 

I eat sleep & piss over verses until it feels right.

If the devil is in the room I can turn out a verse in flashes.

8. Do you write to a beat, or do you adjust and tweak lyrics to fit a beat?

Both. I write to instrumentals of songs I love.

9. What dictates the direction of your lyrics? Are you led by an idea or topic you have in mind beforehand? Is it stream-of-consciousness? Is what you come up with determined by the constraint of the rhymes?

All of the above and none of the above. 

I’m a leach/thief. I’ll snatch shit from anywhere.

10. Do you like to experiment with different forms and rhyme schemes, or do you keep your bars free and flexible?

It’s all an experiment.

11. What’s a verse you’re particularly proud of, one where you met the vision for what you desire to do with your lyrics?

Each and every verse. I don’t publish anything that doesn’t completely turn me out.

12. Can you pick a favorite bar of yours and describe the genesis of it?

"Modern Man”:

My city ain’t my city anymore  These buildings and these streets I don’t recall  And where did this man in my mirror come from That’s not the face I knew when I was young 

I was walking around NYC feeling like a tourist in my own town and an outsider in my own body. Time waits for no man.

13. Do you feel strongly one way or another about punch-ins? Will you whittle a bar down in order to account for breath control, or are you comfortable punching-in so you don’t have to sacrifice any words?

I punch my demos.

14. What non-hiphop material do you turn to for inspiration? What non-music has influenced your work recently?

Dark Magus-era Miles Davis. Mark Knopfler's "Madame Geneva’s."

My children.

15. Writers are often saddled with self-doubt. Do you struggle to like your own shit, or does it all sound dope to you?

All of it sounds fucking dope to me!

16. Who’s a rapper you listen to with such a distinguishable style that you need to resist the urge to imitate them?

Greg Nice and I don’t resist.

17. Do you have an agenda as an artist? Are there overarching concerns you want to communicate to the listener?

Freedom.

RAPS + CRAFTS is a series of questions posed to rappers about their craft and process. It is designed to give respect and credit to their engagement with the art of songwriting. The format is inspired, in part, by Rob McLennan’s 12 or 20 interview series.

Photo credit: Bryan Lackner

[votava-records]

NOSAJ OF NEW KINGDOM AND V8 TFD - FREEBIRD (ACID IS GROOVY KILL THE PIGZ)

Beats by V8 TFD

ACID IS GROOVY KILL THE PIGZ is a High Art Masterpiece put together by two pioneering sound veterans from their own respectful cities. This is a hard earned mutton at the end of the day made by animated air signs and servants to this innovative and brand new technology......you can say it is quite possibly everything and your favorite flavor fried. Without boasting, it is unexplainable and majestic. The acid is a groovy pair of hooves that always walk Lucifer.......the pigz are what we murder. These are ghosts that never get tired of dying. You won't be able to put it down like a rabid dog you were once in love with as a child and shoot right through the heart like a deer except, except this installation hunts you! It will find you in your sleep like the dead and hold you down like sleep paralysis demons and fill your lungs with hot water and smoke.

[nelkcats]

The Banshee, a JL mystery

A foreign case was being discussed by the Justice League, in general it was not bad, just rare.

It began a couple of months ago, a tourist had come to Star City, but he did not visit the city, he did not even register, he just pop out of nowhere, went to the cemetery, and apparently the cameras recorded him placing flowers in all the tombs and talking with the air or with some of the people engraved in the stones, they were not sure of it.

The strange thing was that the cameras around him were always corrupted, they needed the JLD to even stabilize the image, and ¿was that not worrying? They assumed that something supernatural was following him, the boy looked strictly human, but even the trackers that they tried to put were damaged around him.

Unfortunate for the entire league, although they had the guy features, the image was not clear enough for facial recognition.

The corrupted sound of the camaras sounded like a wail, or a cry, Constantine commented it remembered him to a banshee, so they started to call him "The Banshee" even if Zatanna told them Banshee were strictly women, it stayed.

The wave of visits continued, the boy went through Central City, Metropolis, Washington, Gotham, but it was later where something relevant happened again.

Jason was visiting his own grave when he noticed the boy, he tells, he cared because the young man seemed disconsolate looking at the graves, even yearning if that had some sense.

"Did you know him?" It may be the case of B, but it still had him intrigued. Also, the guy was looking at his grave, he felt like he have the right to ask.

"No, but you could say I already did" the boy sighed, stroking the stone of the tomb "I would also like it-..." Danny stopped, he should not be telling his problems to the owner of the tomb "Ah, no matter, it's good to know he was loved"

Jelousy, the reason why Danny visited the cemeteries was to calm himself, surrounded by what he wants but can not occur, to cry as no one cried for him, Clockwork always said that a part of him died at the moment nobody pay attention to his death, and ¿wasn't that funny?

"¿How do you know?" If someone asked Jason, he would affirm that it was uncomfortable to talk about himself as if he was still dead, but he couldn't do anything about it now.

"Well, he's buried and has a proper resting place, they keep bringing him flowers even though the inside of his grave is empty, you can see the recently removed earth; Many of the dead don't have that luxury, their bodies left somewhere, the missing people were never given a proper burial, I don't know man, ghosts can't build their own graves ¿you know?" He was probably ranting and he knew it, but Danny was tired, he wanted that too, and it was such a stupid rule not to be able to give himself his own resting place, but he wasn't going to burden Jazz, Sam, or Tucker with giving him a funeral.

It was the reason he did this, why he visited cemeteries, laid flowers and talked to the resident ghosts, he wanted to know the feeling, wanted to know what he had lost, wanted to be mourned too.

"Anyway, nice to meet you Nosaj Ddot, be a little grateful for what you have, ¿okay? I know some who would kill for it" he smiled ruefully, starting to pick up his basket of flowers, he had already made his rounds anyway. It was probably time to go back to Amity Park.

"¿Nosaj? What are you talking about-" but the boy was already gone, disappeared into thin air, his communications re-established at the same moment that he noticed his damaged tracker right next to the grave, a short circuit.

"The banshee ¿uh?, he sure is an interesting guy, maybe the League is really onto something this time."

[grrlmusic]

Nosaj Thing - Continua (Instrumentals)

[visitafghanistan]

Lamb Kebab, Qaboli Palaw, Beans, Eggplant, Soup, Salad, and Bread. Bamiyan, Afghanistan. Taken on September 25, 2022

[389]

[underachievers-please-try-harder]

Track of the day // Nosaj Thing and Jacques Greene - Too Close ft Ouri

[disease]

JOHN TEJADA & NOSAJ THING CONTRAST | SINGLE, DEC 2023

[grrl-beetle]

Eric Hu

[bandhyukoh]

An instrumental version and a remix of Nosaj Thing’s ‘We Are (우리는) ft HYUKOH’ are now available! 'We Are (우리는)’ was released on September 7, 2022.

[forgottenbands]

2023 loop

[grrlmusic]

Nosaj Thing B2B Jacques Greene Tour

[visitafghanistan]

The terrain outside of Bamiyan quickly becomes an empty, monochromatic dreamscape of desert and mountain when suddenly a bend in the rough road reveals the bluest waters you have ever seen... This is Band-E Amir, a series of mineral-rich lakes designated as the first national park in Afghanistan. Taken on September 26, 2022