The Awful Records signee discusses the making of her upcoming album, life as a mom, and extraterrestrial experiences.
As Lord Narf answers the phone, unintelligible, yet happy coos interject as her son, Onyx, murmurs in the background.
It’s midday when Lord Narf answers our TransAtlantic call. Atlanta is on lockdown, and while the rapper points out her gratitude at the opportunity to catch up with various tasks, she’s growing restless. Being constricted, while a necessity right now, is something which vastly differs to her creative ideals. Later on in the call, she sums up this fantastical vision, explaining, “Lord Narf is like a character, a cosmic princess who communicates in rap, it’s a big chunk of my personality and weirdness tied together.”
This goofy-but-passionate persona translates to her diverse sound. Her self-titled album N*A*R*F drops on May 8. The 14-track project is almost surreal, high in energy and playful lyricism. Created with performances in mind—something Lord Narf is renowned at being in her element for—the project’s intensity reflects her open approach to creating music. Steering away from the confinement of genre, having explored psychedelic rap in Witchcraft and experimenting with house in impending releases, Lord Narf is continually pushing her style. “I don’t like to put myself in a box,” the eclectic artist adds.
It’s been four years since the release of her last full length—2016’s Witchcraft. Life didn’t slow down in that time either: despite performing, working, and having a child, she still continued to create. Now, revitalized and her usual energetic self, Lord Narf feels ready to make her return. With various projects in the pipeline and ardent on touring post-lockdown, Lord Narf is prepared to leave her mark on the rap game.
You mentioned back in 2017 about your self-titled coming out. Talk me through the process behind N*A*R*F. Have some of these songs existed for a while?
I was gonna put out Lord Narf—that was going to be the name of the project at first, I had been working on that project for a while. For some reason I just kept on making more songs. It just wasn’t piecing together for me and it wasn’t sounding like a project. My head was just in a weird space at that time, and so I ended up saying fuck it to all of those songs. I ended up getting pregnant that next year too so I just really wasn’t working on it anymore. After I finally had my baby, I continued to keep making songs but it was on some different shit–way better and more cohesive. Being pregnant for 9 months, you just feel kind of helpless, and as soon as I had my baby it just was like, This is go time. Everything started to come together naturally because I felt like I was finally in the right mental space. I did make a couple of songs whilst I was pregnant too.
What are some of the inspirations behind this creative process?
I’m surrounded by a lot of music artists. Most of my best friends are in Awful Records, my boyfriend makes music, and my boyfriend’s parents do music. Everyone in my life is some type of artist. I feel like the people in my immediate life and family really inspire me the most because they’re go-getters and we all believe in creating and doing what you love.
Being surrounded by creative people definitely helps.
Yeah, it’s crazy because I know a lot of people who are like, ‘Oh I wish I could be surrounded by more people like me,’ and I’m like damn. I don’t even know what that’s like because for my entire life, everyone I know is just some sort of creative and helped me be inspired in some sort of way.
How did you decide on who to work with on N*A*R*F?
At first I was going to do a project with just me because I felt like in the past I’ve always had so many features and people on my album. I was like, I’ve gotta just have one producer and really give myself more of a shine. At the time when I went to record I ended up with a song with Ripparachie. He’s one of my best friends, we have a project coming out called Team Rocket and so we make songs all the time too. One of them was just so cohesive with what I was doing for this project; it just ended up happening out of nowhere.
I feel like this project is going to make people literally lit. It’s a high energy project so I feel like people are gonna want to turn up and dance and go see my shows type album. I usually go for more of a chill vibe with my projects, but this one I was like, I’m bringing all energy like I would if I was performing.
I’m curious about live performances, but Corona…Do you think that’s something you’d get back into though?
I know. That’s what I was sole planning, like that was the main purpose for this project. For me to be like, the shows are going to be lit, I can literally perform almost any song off the album at a show. We’ll see.
I get nervous sometimes, but honestly, I’ve said and so many other people have said, going to one of my live shows is one of the best parts about me. I can honestly say my favorite thing to do is perform and I love putting on shows. I’ve always been a performer and some type of entertainer my whole life, so it’s just like heaven for me to be on stage.
I found “Piece Of Me” particularly interesting. It opens with “He want a piece of me like I’m a piece of meat.” It reminded me of how sexualized female figures are. Is this something that you’ve had to experience?
Being really sexualized as a female artist? Yes. It’s definitely something that I’ve experienced before. Women in the industry do get treated like pieces of meat a lot of the time. I wasn’t even thinking about that when I was making the song but it’s honestly true though, women get sexualized a lot. Especially in the industry, especially as a female with all these male rappers. A lot of male rappers will just see you as a piece of meat and not take you seriously as a rapper. I feel like I’ve grown to know what situations I should and shouldn’t put myself in, and I’ve kind of known how to like curve those types of situations; I’m a little bit smarter and wiser now so I feel like it would happen to me less since I have had so much experience with it. It’s always going to be something with the industry and women.
What’s it like to collaborate with other Awful Records members?
It’s natural because we’re like a family and we’re all really close to each other. We’re all best friends, so it’s just normal; we’ll just be in the room with each other and be like that sounds cool, or maybe this would sound cool here and somehow we might end up on it ourselves. Everything when recording with them is always spontaneous and random.
How have you found the growth of Awful Records?
They’re still trying to bring like other artists in and just expand Awful in general and not just keep it the same people and in a box. New people have been brought along, and I think that’s kind of cool.
What’s your relationship with Atlanta like?
I was born and raised here, lived here my entire life. I love Atlanta to the death of me, I feel like it’s the best place on Earth that you could really live right now. Our culture is just so diverse, everyone’s moving here now, it’s not that expensive to live here, we have the best food, our strip clubs are the best. So yeah, I love Atlanta.
Is there anyone in Atlanta’s scene you’ve been listening to lately?
There’s a chick that’s on this album with me—Loudy Luna. I’ve known her for a while, but she’s been putting out more of her music lately and I’ve been listening to her. She’s a female artist out of Atlanta, so it’s really tight to hear other female artists coming out and putting their music out. I feel like when I started there were only a handful of us, and now you find out about a new chick rapper every day.
At what point did you realize music was something you wanted to do seriously?
I was always into music but I think I really got serious about music four years ago. Around when Awful first started to pop off, everyone at Awful was like ‘Yo you should try this,’ because I always wrote like poetry and stuff like that at first. I didn’t think I was going to be a rapper. I tried it and then actually realized I really like doing this and that it was actually going somewhere. I was like ‘Yo this is what I was supposed to be doing my whole life.’ I’ve always done stuff that surrounded music; I’ve always danced, I was in a band, everyone in my family has done music. I just didn’t think that was something I was going to do at first until I actually tried.
You mentioned about the poetry, is that something that you still do?
Not as much. Because I make so many songs now, I feel like I’m getting that poetic release from putting out music. But I’ve been saying how I want to start up a little Instagram where I post all my poems, something I’ve done and stuff like that. I should get back on it.
I do approach it the same way [as songwriting], like just the whole creative process. I think of words the same way, but with making music I feel like it’s a little bit different because things can change by the way you say it out loud, or you can add on more stuff to it and it can just fill a whole different concept out of nowhere. I feel like when you’re writing poetry it’s more structured—but, everyone’s creative process is different, that’s just me.
Who were your early inspirations?
I was really inspired by, as far as rapping and stuff, just lived for Missy Elliot. I wanted to be like her; I love her style of rapping. I feel like with a lot of rap, especially a long time ago, people were just super serious in everything they were saying. When I heard Missy Elliot rapping, she’d be saying little silly stuff. She had humor and it was fun. I was like if I ever rap, it would be like Missy Elliot in her style. That was like my first ever real inspiration for rapping. I can talk about anything really, and that’s why Missy Elliot was so cool because she was just being herself.
Each of your releases feels really multifaceted, exploring different genres and concepts. What inspires that?
I feel like I’ve always been very experimental with my sound in general. I like to be able to almost challenge myself and see like, ‘Oh I wonder could I do a song if I sound this way, could I do a track if my flow was this way’ I get bored quickly, I don’t like to do the same thing over and over. I want to do it all and I want to try it all. Before, I felt like I was too focussed on, ‘Oh I need to be able to find this one sound that people can know that it’s Lord Narf when you hear it.’ And now I’m just like fuck that. If I want to sound like a grime artist or try reggae on this track, then I’m just going to try that. That is Narf, I’m just like everybody, I can do it all. I don’t think there’s a set genre to expect from me next, because you can just never know what to expect of me. I’m trying to try it all, so who knows.
I feel like space has been a prevalent theme throughout your work, and I saw that you’ve been putting up space pics and facts on your Instagram, too. Tell me more about that.
I’ve just always been obsessed with space and sci-fi and extraterrestrial stuff. Really my Dad got me on that type of stuff–he has books and books about UFOs. He’s into all that stuff; that’s just been a theme I’ve kept within. I feel like that’s who Lord Narf is if you say that about my artist name; she’s just like this cosmic princess, that’s how I’ve always imagined
I definitely don’t think that we’re the only ones in the universe, that sounds selfish to think. Even when I was a kid, I’d be like ‘aliens aren’t real,’ because that’s what society and adults tell us to scare us. But at the end of the day, a billion trillion other planets in the universe, how are we the only ones with beings on it? I’ve definitely seen UFOs before, like multiple times, but everyone can say that–I don’t know if they were real or not.
How’s mom life?
It’s actually more chill than I thought it would be. I don’t know if it’s because I really got blessed with just an amazing chill baby—I think that’s one of the main parts—but I feel society makes motherhood seem like ‘Oh, once you have a child your life is completely over, you won’t have five minutes to yourself’ which just isn’t true. I feel like if you get into a routine and you really learn your child then it shouldn’t be that bad; it just becomes like second nature. You just have to be a little more responsible for someone else. If anything too, it makes you want to go harder because you want to make a successful life for your child.
What’s next for Lord Narf?
I really want to start working on a tour somehow. Now with all this Corona we don’t know, but that’s my next goal. I just want to go on tour, go back overseas, all over Europe. I want to go everywhere and perform.
Shiva Child, the main producer on N*A*R*F, is also producing a house EP for me and I’m actually doing like a bunch of different house sounds. I’m super excited for that, that one’s next. And then there’s also Team Rocket with Ripparachie to keep on the lookout for.