Na-Kel Smith makes rap songs that sound like waking dreams. On his latest album NAK, Smith's self-produced loops burble and swell like rivulets over pebbled stream beds. Compared to 2023's brash STAND ALONE STUNTMAN, NAK is hypnotic and subtler, blending inspiration from Bankroll Fresh and longtime friend Earl Sweatshirt alike.
Despite the album's occasionally jarring pivots from one song to the next, NAK feels more coherent than eclectic. That's mostly due to Smith's indulgent use of dampeners and vocal processing: sometimes his vocals sound like they were recorded off a staticky AM radio ("NEPHILIM"), or beamed in from outer space ("NO LOVE"). And several beats are mixed with deliberately muffled sounds, as if that specific synth or 808 was playing in another room ("WATCH MY STEP," among others).
For audiophiles, these tics might be off-putting. But the tools will be familiar to fans of Earl and MIKE, collaborators of Smith's who similarly smudge their music with hazy samples and reverb. Smith pushes on these elements until their fuzzed-out texture dominates the soundscape. The most direct comparison would be the beat tapes of Knxwledge and Clams Casino, or the whispery world of MERCZONE (Smith and Mercury have a few songs together). But you could also see Smith's mumble rap chants as a lo-fi counterpart to the noise rap currently en vogue with Che and OsamaSon, sacrificing sonic fidelity to build up towering walls of sound.
Through it all, Smith's rippling cadences and penchant for repetition seamlessly meld together, mesmerizing on softer jams like "CREMATE" and "NO ACT," and counterbalancing harder knocking tracks like "LESSONS" and "WALK THE PLANK." There's a deliberate effort to vary his vocal approach on each song, so even when two loops or cadences are clearly related, they're more like cousins than twins. That attention to detail keeps NAK from lapsing into monotony and gives the album a touch more range than its 32-minute runtime might suggest.
The tape's peak is "FRANCES," where Smith drifts across a tottering orchestral chop that wouldn't sound out of place on Nicolas Jaar's Pomegranates. "How I'm a skater and hang with the killers and scammers and dealers? This shit in my family," he smirks before the smile slips from his face a couple bars later: "Trade all this shit just to bring back my granny." The latent tension in his verse is mirrored in the minor-key strings trembling in and out of focus, as if the slightest breeze would blow them away if Smith's raps weren't holding them down.
