NF

One Liner:  Confessional lyrics from an Eminem-esque Christian rapper.

Poster Position: 15

Thoughts:  Interesting stuff.  You listen to the most popular tracks from this guy (Nate Feuerstein), and I found the Eminem comparison glaring.  Not based on the intricate wordplay or shock value like Eminem, but based on the angry vocal tone.  And good Lord, man, from one line of his Spotify bio, it sure sounds like he has some reason to be angry: "a hardship-filled childhood in which his parents divorced, his mother's boyfriend physically abused him, and his mother eventually killed herself." But as I listen more to this, the more I like it.

He has two full-length albums (2015's Mansion and 2016's Therapy Session) and one EP (2014's NF), and according to Wikipedia his music has been used in a lot of other media, including Madden NFL 16, ESPN, VH1, Showtime, NBC's Chicago P.D., Grimm, Shades of Blue and also featured in the season finale trailer of Fox's Empire. It sounds like the song that has been featured most in that way is "Intro," from Mansion.  That track is not in his top ten most popular on Spotify (despite 3.4 million Spotify streams and 3.2 million YouTube views), but we'll give it a spin here anyway.

Holy crap, dude.  Where did that come from?  I just straight up got goosebumps watching that jenky ass video filmed for $8 in middle-of-nowhere Michigan.  That stuff is awesome.

If this is considered Christian rap, I'd have to say that it seems pretty concealed.  Well, not necessarily concealed, but he's not preaching or proselytizing all that much.  Even more to that point, a song like "Oh Lord," where he is questioning God and asking if he even sees us down here.  Meanwhile, both of these albums went to number 1 on the Billboard Christian albums charts.  Therapy Session also made it to number one on the Billboard rap chart.  Sneaky, man, I've never heard of this.

Back to that confessional sound I alluded to in the intro, here is his most popular track, the title track from 2015's Mansion, with 4.7 million streams.

Hear that Eminem comparison now?  When he's not doing the yelling thing, his tone reminds me a little of Kevin Gates too.  But seriously, this guy is finding some therapy in letting people inside via his music.  His second most popular track on Spotify is the title track from his new album, with only 546k streams so far, but obviously trending up.

He notes that he is writing about things that are real to him, and notes that he doesn't write uplifting, funny, songs, but just uses this for therapy.  If you want to hear that, front and center, listen to "How Could You Leave Us" for another brutal one - talking to his mom about her drug use and dying and leaving him behind.  Its like the opposite of Eminem - he'd be encouraging his mom to eat everything in those pill bottles and die, while NF is so very sad that his mom did just that.  Powerful, especially at the end when he's crying and talking straight to her.  Damn.

This is good stuff.  Some of the new album gets a little too sing-y for me, I'd rather he just raps, but still, I think this is good new music.  I might just go find out what he sounds like in person.