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Pass It 2 Da Left (feat. Young J |
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On the bright summer morning of August 28th, 1978 in San Francisco, California, a star was born. He was appropriately named Nathaniel, meaning "a gift from God", and later became known as Nate The Great, and then NATHAN NY$E. Since the moment of his birth, music was in his blood. His father was a part time jazz musician & antique collector who insisted his third-born son be born at home in his bed, which used to belong to the late great rock & roll singer Janis Joplin. So with that kind of entrance into the world, it was no surprise to anyone that young Nathaniel always had a love & spark for music ever since he was an infant. As a toddler his parents divorced and he relocated with his mother to Santa Rosa in the North Bay Area, where he was raised in a single parent home as a child & young teen. It was in 1991 at the age of 13 that he took his first step towards a career in music by writing & recording his first song under the handle Nate The Great, which has always been a childhood nickname given to him by his family. His earliest tracks were more about partying and teenage mischief, reflecting alot upon the age he was when he made them. It wasnt until a year or two later that the subject of his rhymes began to shift more towards the reality of being raised in poverty by his mother. "I had to take a realistic look at my life & my surroundings, and I saw that I wasn't living the care-free life that I was displaying in my music. I think that's when NATHAN NY$E was born, even though I didn't aquire that handle until a few years later." His first live performance came just a year or so later when he began performing at birthday parties for friends & classmates. "That was my introduction to doing a live show, even though I really had no idea at the time as to what I was doing", he says. "Still, it was a good experience & practice for me." Age 14 was a big turning point in young Nathan's life. "It was as if one day I was still a kid, and the next I was a young man. I began to see the importance of having money & what was going on in my neighborhood around me. People struggling, selling drugs, prostitutes out there selling sex. Coming from a broken home with a mother on drugs & no money, I fell into the trap along with so many others. Before I was 15 years old I was smoking weed, hustling crack, & packing a gun." With no father around to guide him in a positive direction, he looked up to one of his older brothers for guidance, who at the time was making his mark on the streets of San Francisco's rough Fillmore district. "He was not only my brother but my father, teacher, and role model as well". says Nathan. "Most of what he taught me was wrong, but he taught me how to survive on those cold & unforgiving streets." This was also the year that young Nathan started getting in trouble with the law. "I caught my first case at age 14 for assault, and from there it was on. I was arrested probably about 20 times for a variety of crimes from the age 14 to 18. I was off the chain as a youngster." It was in 1998 when he was given the nickname NATHAN NY$E, when a group of friends came walking around the corner one night just in time to see him savagely beating a drug addict who owed him money. They commented on the situation, saying he was "nothin' nice", or better yet "nathan nice", since his name was Nathan. He embraced the new moniker and the name stuck. With his musical ambitions on hold to pursue a life of crime, he put the music game on the back burner. "I was an adult by that time and forced to make it on my own in the world." It wasn't until 1999 while serving a short stint in the Sonoma County Jail that he decided to get back into the rap game & make use of his natural talent as a rhyme-spitter. "I never lost the love or desire to do music, I was just too caught up in the street life to be able to focus on both at that particular time in my life. I always wanted to be a rapper, but back then I wanted to be a gangster even more." In 2001 he teamed up with an O.G. from Fillmore by the name of Creature Man who was just getting an independent label called Fatty Atty Records off the ground. At first things seemed promising for him, but after a few months he left the label due to internal differences before his debut album was finished or released. "I love Creature Man to death, to this day I consider him family. He was one of the first people to actually recognize my talent & believe in me, and I will never forget that. As for why I left the label, it was nothing more than just a difference in scheduling. Both me and Creatch had alot going on in our own lives at that time. He just had another baby a couple months before and I had my second son on the way, we were both doing our thug thang in the streets, and I was also working a full-time job trying to support my family. Neither one of us had as much time as we wanted or needed to focus on the music." Since then NATHAN NY$E has recorded music periodically, with about 30 tracks under his belt, however none of them were ever released. "Back then I didn't know anything about the business aspect of the music game, as far as rights & royalties & all that go. I would just get in somebody, anybody's studio & do my thang. Now I don't even have copies of my own previously recorded music & I have no idea where to find my old tracks." Now with the foundation of his own label NATHAN NY$E MUZIK, LLC. he has 3 projects in the works right now. He is working on his own debut solo album titled "Sumthin From Nathan", a collaboration album with well-known & respected Bay Area rap artist Don Toriano of the group Fully Loaded titled "La Cosa Nostra: This Thing Of Ours", and a collaboration album with his stepson Young Ju$, which is currently untitled. He currently has a mixtape single with Young Ju$ titled "Pass It 2 Da Left" which is currently being digitally distributed through iTunes, AmazonMP3, Rhapsody, Napster, etc. So if you like that unique, game-enriched sound that is trademark of the Bay Area, then keep your ear to the street for NATHAN NY$E, one of the Bay's best kept secrets.
