No More Parties for Nav, He’s Serious About His Return to Rap
Home Sweet Home
Nav returns to the spotlight with a new album and a different frame of mind. His focus is less partying, returning to his roots and reaching the people with his signature sound.
Interview: Grant Rindner
Editor’s Note: This story appears in the Winter 2024 issue of XXL Magazine, on newsstands now and available for sale on the XXL website.
Fans usually don’t put Nav in the SoundCloud rapper category. Still, the Toronto-born artist and producer got his start from the platform and is one of its biggest sustained success stories to date. Thanks to the word-of-mouth popularity of early singles like “Myself” and “Ten Toes Down (TTD),” Navraj Goraya earned a deal with The Weeknd’s XO, an imprint of Republic Records, in 2017 and became a hip-hop fixture after releasing four studio albums filled with A-list collaborators. He also added memorable turns to Travis Scott’s “Beibs in the Trap” and “Yosemite” early on and earned coproducer credits on Drake’s seismic Meek Mill diss “Back to Back” in 2015.
With woozy melodies, synth-centric beats, and lyrics that capture both the ecstasy of a wild party and the brutal feeling of a harsh alarm initiating a horrible hangover, Nav offered his spin on what artists like Drake, Future and The Weeknd have done to great effect. Though he’s frequently dealt with negative critical reception, he’s topped the Billboard 200 twice and accrued armfuls of platinum plaques, like his four-times platinum feature on Internet Money’s massive hit “Lemonade.” Nearly eight years removed from his star-making self-titled mixtape, Nav, 34, is a bona fide elder statesman, and he’s acknowledging that with an album that takes things back to where it all started.
It’s been over two years since Nav dropped his last project, Demons Protected by Angels, a relatively lengthy hiatus for the typically prolific artist. His return comes with OMW2 Rexdale, an album that honors his origins in the Toronto neighborhood of Rexdale and early years without simply returning to that 2017 sound. The effort arrives March 28. Nav’s also been experimenting with new lanes in hip-hop by collaborating with Bronx sexy drill lothario Cash Cobain and Brooklyn rapper Bay Swag on “6AM Thoughts.”
But Nav’s new work also has a clear perspective, from filming himself making beats in his childhood bedroom as part of the LP promo to an album trailer featuring Future in the studio discussing the significance of the project’s homecoming quality. During a Zoom call last October, Nav spoke to XXL about his current place in hip-hop and how his new album marks his triumphant return to Rexdale.
XXL: Could you talk about titling the album OMW2 Rexdale? Do you consider this a homecoming?
Nav: Yes, I do, but it’s not me going back to my old ways, creatively. It’s more so me going back to where I came from with a new perspective [as] a more mature version of myself and creating a new version of that sound, not just duplicating what I did before, which sometimes a lot of fans want you to do.
I even had a film crew come with me at my mom’s house, to my bedroom, where I used to make all my music in my early days and we set up in there. I made a song, and we recorded the whole process. It’s going to be on the album. [It’s] to bring that nostalgia back.
In the lead-up to it, had you been spending more time in Toronto? Had it been on your mind, or did you start cutting tracks and realize, “OK, this works as a theme and a frame?”
Recently, I went to my neighborhood and the high school and met all the kids. I checked out the music room there and told them I’m going to come upgrade the whole music room [and] get them computers, so these kids can make beats.
I lived in a bungalow house in Rexdale, but a lot of my friends lived in the projects. I used to be over there a lot, just hanging out every day. Playing basketball, just chilling, smoking weed with them, whatever. And I just went back there and saw how run down it is, so I’m redoing the whole basketball court, fixing fences, doing everything I can.
It’s about going back and reminding people where I come from and what the real story is because a lot of that gets lost. When you’ve been in the game for like, eight years, sometimes people just start thinking you might be from L.A., or a lot of people thought I was from New York because I be in New York so much. So, it’s like you just got to kind of remind them where you come from and the humble beginnings, so they can connect to you again.
There’s definitely a pocket of your audience that’s fixated on you returning to older sounds.
It’s a process. I feel like a lot of artists go through that in the beginning; there was no old sound, so I showed them what they wanted, and they liked it. If everybody knew what kind of music they wanted to hear from me, they could just go make the beat, write the lyrics, and make the song for themselves. But as artists, you can’t compromise your artistry, and you always have to give people what they want even when they don’t know what they want. You show them what they want.
How did Future talking about Rexdale in the album trailer come about?
Cash [Amir “Cash” Esmailian] is my manager. He’s got this house with a studio in the backyard and everyone comes through. One day, Future rolled up just randomly and we were chilling. Then, we went to the studio. We started playing him some songs and told him how the fans want Nav 2. Then he started explaining, saying, “Nav 2 sounds like that’s the final chapter, like that’s when you’re done. You got a song, ‘On My Way 2 Rexdale.’ You might as well just name this On My Way 2 Rexdale.”
We started thinking, That’s kind of genius, because then we could do merch and shows like On My Way 2 Paris, On My Way 2 London. There’s so many ideas that came out of him saying that compared to just Nav 2.
You’ve done a couple of tracks with Cash Cobain and dove into some new sounds that didn’t even exist at the start of your career. As someone who’s been in the game for a while, why is it important to stay aware of the younger generation and try your hand at these styles?
The thing with Cash Cobain is super organic. I’m Canadian, and 90 percent of my friends in America are from New York, specifically Queens. So, me just seeing Bay Swag from a young age making music, trying to do his thing and them catching a moment with the “Fisherrr” song. Then, going to New York and going to the clubs and just seeing how these guys have everything on tilt.
It’s not like I caught onto the wave. I’ve been around Bay Swag for mad years. He’s been around us since a kid. All my homies, he knows them longer than me. If there’s another wave happening in another city, and I didn’t know those guys, I wouldn’t be DMing them trying to get on this song.
Are there artists whose evolution you see as the trajectory you’d like to follow?
Travis Scott, The Weeknd, of course. Both keep creating new sounds and showing the people what they want. If I wanted to make an album that just sounded exactly like my first one, I feel like everybody would be disappointed, and I kind of fall into this trap of listening to what other people want.
Many artists who started in the mid-to-late 2010s, like yourself, are figuring out, Where am I in the industry? What do I want to be? How do I want to position myself to be a 30-year artist, not just a 10-year artist? Where do you see your place in the current rap landscape? Do you feel like an elder statesman?
Maybe age-wise sometimes, but in my career, I feel young. I feel like I’m just getting started. In terms of the time that I took between the last album, the first five, six years of my career was all a blur. I went from being a broke guy living with my mom in the hood doing nothing to now, I’m in L.A. and I’m a millionaire.
I didn’t really take it all in. I had relationships with girls and relationships with my homies that [necessitated] a lot of cleaning up of the house. I still go to the studio and make songs, but [the last two years have been] stepping back from music, mentally, and taking care of my personal life because it started becoming a mess and started messing with my career. Now, I’m here and I’m clear-minded. I got the music ready, and I’m ready to go for the next chapter.
Even from the outside, your early years seemed like a massive whirlwind.
If you’re so focused on the career, you put everything else to the side. Then you’re getting all this money, and you’re just patching things up [with] money. One day you wake up, and you’re like, Damn, who’s really for me? Who’s really with me? Should I have done all this stuff for people that were ungrateful?
That’s where I feel I’m at in my personal life, and I’m just stopping to overextend myself for people that don’t deserve it. It’s crazy how, as [I] get older, I’ve been drinking less, I’ve been partying less, and it’s crazy how [I] just want different things.
What do you have planned after the album’s release? Are you starting to put together a tour?
On one of my flights, I watched the Elvis movie and saw how Elvis barely left America. So, I’m like, Hey, man, I don’t want to ever be like Elvis. I got to go international. I haven’t even touched those waters, so one big thing that I want to do is India. And we’re doing Thailand, Rolling Loud, so I’m just excited. I feel like international crowds never see us, so it’s just going to be a wake-up call for me that I got to do a lot of stuff over there.
Given the amount of success you’ve had and your Punjabi roots, it’s surprising you haven’t performed overseas much.
A lot of things stopped me from doing that early in my career because of COVID. I dropped two No. 1 albums, and the second time I dropped the No. 1 album, we were in COVID. I couldn’t even tour because it just messed up my timeline in terms of going international. But now, we’re back at it.
Once OMW2 Rexdale is out, say, six months after that, how will you gauge its success and whether it’s had the impact that you want it to have? What does that look like for you for this album?
The best indicator is looking at which songs are doing well from the album. Then, when you perform them, how the crowd reacts. That’s where I’ll be able to gauge where I’m at and what to do next. What I plan—in my heart of what I want to do—is I don’t want to take a big gap between this and another project, whether it’s a mixtape or whatever.
If I got to do a studio album and then a street mixtape or something, I’m not taking my foot off the gas because sooner or later, that sh*t’s going to creep up. I’m not going to do this until I’m 50 years old. Maybe, God bless, I will do it ’til I’m 45, but I have to start flooding the gates now because I’m not trying to wait a year or two years in between now. I’m trying to always stay on.
The Winter 2024 issue of XXL magazine featuring Nav’s interview is available for purchase now and is on newsstands. The issue also includes GloRilla and Sexyy Red on the cover, conversations with Quando Rondo, Ab-Soul, Dej Loaf, Ferg, Nav, Kash Doll, Sauce Walka, Anycia, Baby Kia, OsamaSon, BLP Kosher, Sugarhill Ddot, dancehall artist Skillibeng and producer Ace Charisma. There’s also a look at the new season of the Netflix reality competition show Rhythm + Flow through the eyes of its judges Latto, DJ Khaled and Ludacris ,the hip-hop community discussing the current state of lyricism and a discussion with high-powered hip-hop attorney Drew Findling.