Award-winning rapper Nasty C chatted openly on “The Episode” podcast where he spoke to host Darryl Nyamz about a range of topics, including his newest venture into the gaming world as well as lessons he learnt from fellow rapper AKA.
Asked how he felt about being internationally recognised for his music and hanging out with other international artists he said: “I am getting to live my dream and it’s a blessing.”
“It’s so surreal, like the first couple times you get to interact with these guys, I don’t know what a lot of people expect out of them, but I’m always expecting them to be like superstars and when you meet them, they very humble, very normal guys who appreciate the talent in anyone else that they meet regardless of where you come from. It’s golden to me,” he said.
The “Black and White” hitmaker recently revealed that he has sealed a deal with video game makers for “Call of Duty”.
The collaboration sees the artist being the face of the “Call of Duty” mobile campaign. The game is currently the world’s best-selling video game.
Nasty C shared how the collaboration came about.
“You can make all this music but if you don’t go out there and see people receive it, it’s not the same, so I found a new love in gaming and ‘Call of Duty’ specially and I just put that out there.
“I always wanted to someday be a partner of the brand and have them recognise the love I have for the sport, it’s a sport to me. I just kept putting it out there and I guess the right eyes caught hold what was happening and they reached out.
“I always saw gaming and music going hand and hand, especially for these young kids. If they not listening to music or doing school work they are playing games. It only made sense to marry the two.
“These are two growing industries, one has been growing for longer than the other in SA, music is still on a crazy come up, but the gaming side of things is fairly new. It made sense to marry the two and rise with them,” he said.
Further into the chat while speaking about his recent collaboration with fellow rapper AKA on his “Lemons (Lemonade) verse, which has become one of the biggest verses in hip hop right now, he said at first he was not sure if he would be able to deliver.
“I was very unsure if I will be able to deliver because he (AKA) is not my kind of sound. I was like ‘I don’t know’, jumping on that sound with someone who is pretty much the guard of that sound is tricky.
"It was dope, it was very effortless, I don’t think I wrote not one line after that day because I was like ‘I don’t know how to approach this kind of thing’, I just sat back and said if this is the sound I’m going to have to gel with, I need to dig deep into my AKA, HHP fandom, I kind of just let it vibe a little bit and I just vibed out that’s why I sound so relaxed in there because I was like this might not even go anywhere, so I might as well ...
“A lot of people, at the height of the AKA and Cassper (Nyovest) beef, asked me what’s it like having songs with both these guys. And I always kind of say, the track with Cassper and Anatii was dope, we were just vibing and then with AKA there was a little bit of tension, it was like what are you doing, and I was like, I wish one day we can just make a fun song, and there it goes, now we have it, it’s pretty dope,“ he said.
Learning from his experience on “Lemons (Lemonade)” he said there has been a bit of a shift in the way he looks at his music.
“Now I know if I want a song to really resonate with my South African fans I have to mention these things that are easily relatable to them.
“It kind of opened my eyes up to those things. I always was the guy to shoo for the whole world, touching on the global trends, its nice to be able to at least know now,” he shared.
Watch the full video here.
Read the latest IOL Entertainment digi mag here.