We recently connected with Nate Goodness and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Nate thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you tell us about a time that your work has been misunderstood? Why do you think it happened and did any interesting insights emerge from the experience?

It’s hard – every time – to say “I rap” or “I am a rapper,” because there are so many stereotypes and assumptions that come with this art form. Hip Hop music is so full of polarizing language, images, ideas and ideals that the average listener isn’t prepared to hear an emcee glorify working towards inner peace and healing and then explain why violent protest can be a necessity. I like to say that “I rap in real life.” I don’t get in front of the mic and slip into a superego version of myself. I mean – say hyperbolic, over the top stuff, out of this world stuff too, but it’s all in an effort to point out a truth, an insight, an understanding or even to share a misunderstanding about life in hopes that the listener can give me the answers (lol)
I use rap as a tool to make sense of the world around us and the worlds inside of use. And it can be an uphill journey to be heard when popular rap music has been shaped into the go to genre for voyeuristic escapism. But it’s important to remember that that is not what rap IS, but simply one of the things it CAN BE!
Rappers have never been respected as the literary creatives and authors that we are, and the assumption that we aren’t keeps many listeners from HEARING the art with a more open mind – and from “catching” some dope lines
The flip side is that I shy away from saying that “I am more than a rapper” or “not just a rapper” because I believe that hip hop music and art encompasses everything in the human experience, so if I want to do sing, perform spoken word poetry style, or do “that too” with my art – it’s still Hip Hop, and it all stems from my ability to rap well

Nate, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

The short answer is I do Hip Hop because I Love it. If I didn’t do it I would still Love it as a fan.

Luckily the first artists whose music I purchased and became obsessed with we’re good teachers. And I was double-lucky that my father let me listen to their albums nonstop even though I was 11 years old and had no business hearing or reciting these particular artists lyrics.

The first album I ever bought was DMXs “It’s Dark and Hell is Hot” – a masterclass in emotional storytelling and the craft of sculpting raw human emotion into universally understood moments. I was able to listen to the depths and heights of a man’s soul, relayed with poise (even when DMX is crying and shouting in song it doesn’t seem contrived or disingenuous). I didn’t know at the time, but I was studying lightning in a bottle.

The second piece of music I purchased and pored over was Eminem’s “The Slim Shady LP.”
I don’t know if Marshall Mathers could get away with some of the lyrics today without getting cancelled and I remember my ex-step mother telling me to take this disgusting tape out of her car! I didn’t realize how crass or offensive the material was (and I still don’t care), but I FELT that Eminem was doing something special and I couldn’t stop listening. I got to absorb the mastery of multi-syllabic rhyming, punchlines delivered on top of each other and WORD PLAY presented in a way that made me wonder if Eminem even meant for me to understand it the way I did or if he meant something else (it’s was both)

It’s important to mention HOW I listened to these albums. Before www.genius.com was helping people understand every detail of a K Dot verse there was ohhla.com. It was a bare bones hip hop lyric website in the early days of the internet. I would walk to the library from my middle school, and pay 10 cents per page to print out the lyrics I needed. Then I would staple 2 or 3 pages per song together and arrange the “sheet music” in a folder (a physical one that went in my book bag) in the order of the track listings (I promise I wasn’t diagnosed with OCD…) and I would listen and read and recite along.
This was another instance of me not knowing what was developing in me as I enjoyed my hobby. I was developing a visual understanding of how these sounds played off of each other. I would see a shape to the rhyme patterns. To this day I feel that there is a “geometry” to a verse that I can’t explain to others. Internal rhyming and resolving melodies became second nature before I even attempted to write for myself.

If I didn’t DO it I would still Love it as a fan.
I would still recite other peoples verses with the same passion they perform it with. I would still treat the remote control like a microphone and rap along to a new favorite verse as if my living room was a stage. I never grew out of that. I just started putting MY WORDS and feelings in the place of my favorite artists’ and eventually (way later) realized that the time, energy, and resources I was putting into this could come back to me if I crafted and presented my art thoroughly.
The leap from hobby, to habit, to it being a part of my personal homeostasis took years and it wasn’t purposeful. I got to a point where I was telling myself “this rap shit ain’t fun no more” but I couldn’t stop at that point; it was so ingrained in me that I would often think in rhyme or find a melody in the way the words played off of each other in regular conversations.
I decided that this “no fun” feeling was the weight of the responsibility from the gift I had unknowingly trained myself into. I had Hip Hop in me and I had to do something with it. Today, I have it in me and I have to do something with it – everyday – or I feel unfulfilled.

I use the word responsibility because I see my ability as a tool – not just something that I do better than others or a bragging point. I rap well….so what?! Have you been to the internet? A lot of people rap well. They rap about treasures and trash and pleasures and pains. But what is being done WITH rap besides talking about ourselves and our stuff?
I’ve seen orators starting and ending movements with speeches and I cannot understand the difference between a civil rights leaders speeches and a powerful rap song. I don’t feel the difference between a moving documentary and an album rooted in the struggles of surviving in a subsection of an American city. I see the path of the African Griot, clearly, continuing with the emcee.
I decided that I will move peoples minds with my words. Music can uplift the body and get it moving, but it can do the same for the mind and spirit.
Some of most meaningful interactions I have with supporters are when I’m told that my art made someone “feel seen” or “not alone”!

I make rap music that doesn’t seek to put down others in an attempt to raise or praise myself. I make music that affirms our ability to be greater individually and our ability to make the world better by lifting ourselves up. My art is a tool that I use to mould myself, to uplift my People, and to move the World.

Can you share your view on NFTs? (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

Artists owning their art and having control over how it is distributed or sold is very important. Although the conversation around NFTs is full of confusion – at its core, it’s about taking power away from the middlemen that only value art for what THEY can make from it. When the artist and the consumer can come to an agreement and make and exchange based on what value the artist has placed on their work and the value a consumer receives from it – we then have a fair (and rare) exchange.
Unfortunately we are in a society where the average consumer doesn’t know and some don’t care how much time, and resources; life, spirit, energy and emotion goes into crafting and creating.
The NFT movement has widened people’s minds to engage in alternate ways of consumers compensating their favorite artists and ways for artists to come up with more creative ways to give their supporters value.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

I am not trying to be the “best” “top” “goat”Rapper. I am not out to beat or be better than local rapper X and I am not trying to follow in the footsteps of legendary rapper Z. I am an artist. I make worlds out of words. My main tool is rap style lyrics. Often it’s performance poetry-style lyrics. Other times is sing-song-style lyrics. Sometimes a song isn’t even the best canvas for my lyrics and I rework the idea into an image and it becomes a tee shirt or hoodie.
But the words and the messages they carry are what’s important. Not the style or how I, personally, look and sound.
I am a creative and Im using my abilities to learn and grow through my human experience as a Black Man and to shed light and Love on the Black experience and Human life in general – in hopes that others can gain understanding and growth in their own experiences.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.Nategoodness.com
• Instagram: @nategoodness
• Facebook: Facebook.com/nategoodness
• Twitter: Twitter.com/nategoodness
• Youtube: YouTube.com/nategoodness

Image Credits
Quinton Randall