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Ayana Zaire: Nappa! Solbiato Sports talk about the project. Nappy Nappa: I wanted to make a project that was rap, you know? I was working on this project called Old City and like I knew I wasn’t going to have that done in time to put out for the summer so I put out Solbiato Sports in the meantime. AZ: So it was kinda like a teaser...So where are you from? NN: I’m from here. Washington DC, SE. I lived on P st. P and 19th in SE then I moved when I was like 10 to 30th st and yeah. AZ: What inspired the name Nappy Nappa? NN: So I went through a lot of names in my whole rap career from like Scotty Rah, after that it was just my name, Devonte. And then *busts out laughing* and one of my homies was like yeah that’s a tight name just, Devonte, and then my other homie was like that sound lazy as shit. *both laughs* And I was like you right son that do sound like I did not try. Also I was named after a Devonte in Jodeci so I was like I didn’t want to do that either. AZ: Ohhh shit!? That’s funny. What’s wrong with Jodeci? *laughs* NN: Nothing, nothing’s wrong with Jodeci but I’m not Jodeci, you know? *laughs* So I was just sending my homie endless names and I was like “Nappy Nappa”. I used the name for the sake of alliteration and also its like Nappa is a character on Dragon Ball Z and then nappy is the texture of your hair and what not. So it’s just like two polar opposite things and that’s how I kind of see myself. AZ: Oh okay it was just about clashing two worlds? NN: Right AZ: That’s interesting. Okay so when did you start rapping / writing like you talk about your rap career, when did that start for you? NN: I was always rapping because me, my father, and my brother would always just sit down and freestyle and then after that I started writing. Then my freshman year of high school I was at Duke for dancing and I was never with the dancers. I had love for them but... AZ: YOU WENT TO DUKE FOR DANCE? What kind of dance? NN: Ballet, that’s the only dance they have. AZ: No fucking way. NN: Yeahhhhh. *laughs* It was jah interesting. It taught me a lot of shit. I fucked with dancing, but it wasn’t like what I wanted to do with my life so I was just always with literary media which was the writing kids. Kids in other departments and shit, so I would go to the studio in Duke and record with these other artists and I was just rapping with them and that’s when I was Scotty Rah. Then I made my first actual song with Marty Heem and that’s when I was like yeah I’m about to just do this forever. AZ: So in the “Whassup” chorus it’s kind of political, like you talk about a black boy getting shot down and asks if anyone hears it. Then in “DC Daily News” you kind of talk about gentrification and the whitewashing of the once — chocolate city so do you think living in DC influences your writing from a political perspective? NN: Yeah and it directly affects me and my homies, you know? Like the week before I made “DC Daily News” my homie was living on U St and they ain’t kick his family out but they just like gave them money to move somewhere else while they changed their crib. So its just like damn I used to be over his house everyday and now we walk pass and everything’s boarded up so its just...it’s real life. AZ: I want to talk more about how you’ve seen the city change as you’ve grown up here. NN: Yeah. The Legend is closed. They don’t have DC Star or the CFE, none of that anymore like...it’s just changed. Even if you went to Adams Morgan Day this year, it was horrible. Like last year they had Chuck Brown’s daughter rap, they had endless gogo bands out there...its very sad to say, “whitewashed” now. But it’s kind of good cause DC was jah fucked at a certain point, like if you weren’t from a certain area you should not be in that area - you should not be walking there. So I don’t know, it’s not even something I sit there and think about. It’s just what I see and... it’s, it’s depressing, you know? It makes you want to get the hell out of DC but as much as I want to get out of DC, I want to change it even more. AZ: So how do you think that can be addressed? How can it be addressed in a way that still benefits the city and benefits the people in it, you know what I mean? The people that have been here... NN: That’s like the weird part. Do you simply stop gentrification? Cause if you do then the city will once again be fucked up but then if you keep doing this shit it’ll still be fucked up. Like they’re kicking people out of their houses. People have nowhere to go. It’s very shitty, especially during the winter when they chose to kick people out of their houses. But how do you address it? I mean, I guess you have to acknowledge it first. Like the people who are doing it, they don’t acknowledge the fucked up aspect about it, you know. AZ: Yeah, cause they don’t live it. They don’t see it. NN: Yeah they don’t but honestly you don’t have to live it to see that. AZ: That’s true. NN: Like if you see the houses you’re putting here cost more than what the people who are living there were paying at first then you know they’re ass’d out. So I don’t know, they just got to cool it. Like at this point they got to cool it cause you don’t gotta do too much now, you know? It’s not much more they need to change to make the city better. It’s like, I don’t know, they should probably just cool it and leave people’s houses alone right now. They can pick it back up every two years or something. AZ: Right like space it out, you don’t gotta be so aggressive with the shits. NN: *both laughs* Yeah like give people time to adapt... AZ: What resources do you wish were in place in DC that you think would help fuel your success as an artist? NN: Genuine love and an actual platform for rap artists. Like you have Rock and Roll Hotel, there’s no rap hotel. There’s not even a jazz hotel. So it’s more like rappers are pushed to the side when it comes to the arts in DC. It’s definitely promoted amongst the kids and it’s definitely flourished but its like if niggas don’t support this local nigga as much as they support a nigga from another state then none of us are about to get anywhere, you know? But 9:30 club don’t really be letting DC rap artists perform there, Black Cat don’t be letting niggas come through there. We just need more venues to perform. AZ: So what about Young Thug being asked about Mike Brown and saying he’s iced out with money and he’s basically not worried about that? NN: That’s that nigga not being directly affected by it. He’s not directly affected by it at all so he probably don’t give a shit. But I think people take a lot of shit out of context, maybe he didn’t mean that as literally as it was taken so I don’t know. AZ: I think about this a lot, rap artists have this crazy amount of power to shift the culture and the fact that most of our mainstream rappers do not acknowledge how fucked up this country is...I just always have trouble with that. NN: I mean when Kendrick tried to they called this man a domestic terrorist, you know? They said he was trying to kill police. You’re damned if you do, you’re damned if you don’t. AZ: Well that’s why it’s so important, right? NN: It is, it is but it’s more effective ways to go about it then rapping and talking. If you got money you can probably do a lot more. I mean, fucking Birdman and Lil Wayne took a lot of Ward 8 people out of the projects and put them in nice houses and let them live in there for free so its many effective ways to help your people. @nappynappa