Interview: Uncommon Nasa on his new album, ‘Only Child’

New York’s Uncommon Nasa releases his sixth album, Only Child, on August 6. We talked to him about the concept behind the project, working with Messiah Musik, and more. We’re also bringing you the premiere of the video for “Vincent Crane.” Watch that below, then keep scrolling for the interview.

As the title suggests, Only Child looks back at your life as a kid without siblings and your relationship with your parents. How would describe the experience of being a child and how has it shaped you as an adult?

Being an Only Child, things happen to YOU. I think when you have siblings there are lots of “WE” stories to tell. I think that difference in point of view shapes you.  The dedication to my folks is regarding our ups and downs together, many of which are discussed on the album. There are lots of events we shared together, but as a kid that’s an only child, you spend a lot of time alone when your parents both work. All of that time alone really shapes you and I feel strengthens you in a lot of ways as an adult.

Your albums are always very reflective and personal, and Only Child is definitely part of that cannon. There are also no guest features. Is that a way to make sure the narrative and direction of the album stayed 100% your personal story?

Yes. It would be hard with this subject matter to bring someone else into this theme. This was an opportunity for me to tell my story on my own terms and I purposefully kept the artistic circle very small, even down to the instrumentation. One producer for the whole album with me playing any additional material myself. No one else from the outside really.

You also talk about how being 40 with no children to channel your energy into, you instead look inwards to find the inner child in you. I recently turned 40, I have two kids, and I was not an only child, so your experience is the opposite to mine. Can you elaborate on this feeling?

I think when you have kids, whether it’s at 18 or 38 it matures you in some ways exactly where you stand. Some level of focus for a life other than your own will change you. When you don’t have kids, this sort of epiphany has to happen to you naturally and for most that will kick in around 40, at least it did for me. I’ll never forget my 40th birthday, watching the sun set that day and thinking about how the sun was setting on an entire phase of my life. I can only assume for people with kids that happens when they hold their kid for the first time. I think once you get to that point in life, hitting 40, without kids, you do become your own parent. Your references to kids come from your own experiences growing up and not from raising others. Thinking back on the mistakes you made or dumb things you thought, instead of looking at a child and thinking that. I do feel that connecting with your own history and childhood is important for everyone though, whether you have siblings or kids or not, a deep connection with your inner self is so important in my opinion. I just think in my case, that sense of self evolved naturally due to my circumstances.

Only Child is produced by Messiah Musik. His profile has been rising recently from his work with Mach-Hommy, Your Old Droog, billy woods, etc, but you guys go all the way back to New York Telephone in 2014. Tell me about your relationship with him.

I’m super happy for Messiah Musik, he’s starting to get the attention he deserves.  We actually began selecting beats for this project quite some time ago, I may have even been on tour behind New York Telephone at the time.  The way he produces, it leaves me the space to get my themes and stories across. He’s a good dude too, humble and trustworthy.  Those are qualities that you have to surround yourself with in this business, especially at this point in my career.

We talked in a previous interview about how, as an artist who writes across different mediums, whether your approach to writing differs between, say, a rap song versus your poetry. When you are making an entire album with one producer like Messiah Musik, does that impact how you write, as opposed to when you are writing to a beat you produced yourself?

Absolutely, my production style is a lot more aggressive, but my writing and performing style is not always that. As an artist of multiple disciplines, those disciplines do not always line up. So even though I want to produce something that will make you smash your head against the wall, that’s not what I always want to write. On Only Child I wanted to tell my story in the most cohesive but provoking way, and I feel like Messiah Musik’s beats gave me the opportunity to do that. Some of these songs flowed out of me so naturally.  I write to the beat I use for a given idea about 99% of the time, so the direction of the album was something carved out of the pocket these beats put me in. Other producers will inevitably send me in their own unique direction, including myself as a producer.

Lastly, did you get chance to listen to Open Mike Eagle’s What Had Happened Was Season 2 with El-P? El gave you a couple of shoutouts for the part you played in the Def Jux story.

I did not listen to the whole thing, but I had some people send me texts and links to certain parts including where I was mentioned. I poured a lot of hours of work and passion into the music coming out of Definitive Jux during that era. While I would certainly expect some mention, having been there as deep as I was, it doesn’t always work out that way in the music business so I definitely appreciated El doing that when the subject came up.