Next Saturday, multi award-winning rapper Nasty C will be joined by rising Atlanta star Domani, who’s legendary rapper T.I’s son, at the Joburg leg of his Ivyson Army Tour.
The pair have been enjoying spending time going out to restaurants across Jozi, embarking on game drives and visiting places like Cape Town, Durban and Bloemfontein for previous iterations of the tour.
When I spoke with them both a week ago at a boardroom in Sandton, Domani talked me through their work together on Friends, a standout single on his recent album, “SKYDIVE”.
They met last year at the Trap Music Museum, exchanged information, then immediately started chatting. After Domani sent him a couple of songs, Nasty was immediately drawn to Friends.
“He was like I like this one and he asked if he could jump on it,” explained Domani. “I was like of course, that’s why I sent it. I would love to have you on it. And he started writing to it while he was pulling up to the studio and on the way he was trying to record right then.”
Domani set it up and when Nasty arrived in the studio he proceeded to knock it out of the park, as he tends to do. He had half of the verse written and freestyled the rest, Domani said.
I asked Nasty if that’s typically his process when it comes to making music. “I mostly freestyle hooks and if I’m with people. But a lot of the time I record by myself so I take the time to write. When I’m with people I tend to feel the vibe. If you want the vibey songs it’s always better to have people around you just to pass ideas back and forth.”
Alternatively, when he’s writing something really introspective, he prefers to be alone and take his time with it. That was the process he took with one of his recent singles Stalling, which has been one of his most popular songs for a while now.
Stalling tells the tale of unrequited love and a one sided relationship. “I definitely knew that it was going to be very relatable because it’s a very typical story. It happens to a lot of people where you find yourself in a relationship where you’re invested more than the other person. So when I made that song I didn’t even have to think about a specific relationship or an event of some sort, I knew exactly what to say. So it wasn’t that deep for me when I wrote that.”
A month later, in March, Nasty followed Stalling up with Can’t Imagine, which in stark contrast to the melodic Stalling saw Nasty rapping aggressively and proclaiming his status as the best rapper around.
“I made Can’t Imagine like two months into lockdown. So it was just me and all my guys at the house everyday just messing around and making ideas,” he said.
The song seems to carry some subliminal shots at controversial media personality Nota, with whom Nasty had tense back and forth on Twitter two years ago. I ask him to clarify if that’s the case.
“Yes,” he says, laughing. “People were bored in the house, so n****s just wanted to tweet s***. I had fun with it bro. Gemini and them were in the house so they were just encouraging me to say some s*** on Twitter, so I just had fun with it. Anytime we see each other in person, Speedsta or Nota, we crack up before we even say anything, so it wasn’t even a real problem.”
