The title of C-Lay and I's new album is Nuchalawoyya. I wanted to give you a quick definition of what Nuchalawoyya is and what it once was.
Nuchalawoyya is coming together. Nuchalawoyya is empowerment. Where you represent, test yourself, and compete. Nuchalawoyya for me represents a time past, where our village was strong. Nuchalawoyya is a time of celebration, a party, but it's much more then just that.
There was a long time period where Nuchalawoyya stopped happening, and now a days Nuchalawoyya is thrown every other year but they just call it "Mini Nuch".. We're bringing back the real Nuchalawoyya..
Our album Nuchalawoyya is amazing in my opinion. It's a little different then the other albums, I tried to make sure more with this album that both Clay and I liked every song. A lot of the material is "Feel Good Music" which I explain in "Invasion", a track about the native struggle both home and nationwide..
We had a 3 year hiatus in between Dedication and Nuchalawoyya.. In that time I've focused on track, college and everything in between. C-Lay been focusing on school his fam and basketball. In that time one of our best friends Vaughn passed away. He's in our music videos from Nuchalawoyya ("AK's Finest", "Represent", and "Falling").. We dedicated Falling to VK.
In the hiatus between albums we almost quit a couple of times. We went on tour got in a fight, had our Deposits taken from venues because fights broke out during our shows, windows were broken. It's like we couldn't go anywhere without crazy drama. My truck got shot twice in a drive by while we were doing the AK's finest music video shoot. Later that summer they told us to not come back to doing shows at the Tanana Valley State Fair because they claim we said a few swear words during our "All ages show".. The Media, and a lot of the public seemed to be against us. When you live in the spotlight people want you to fail, they want something negative to happen to you. Also we constantly have had to deal with the crab pot syndrome growing up, where people don't want you to do things.
I had a studio that got robbed of mic's and other equipment. Clay missed flights to come out to Washington and work on the album, due to circumstances out of our control.. I'm almost not believing that we actually got the shit done.
There were times where Clay was rapping so good in Nuchalawoyya that the only thing I could do was say the most ridiculous things I could think of. I feel like our hooks are dope as fuck on Nuchalawoyya too. It's like a collection of anthems that describe our lifestyle and how we live. Production is similar to "For the Fam" where the beats have a classic feel to them. I ain't going to lie with all of the drama I kind of picked a lot of instrumentals geared towards Clay's style. Cuz I knew if he got excited for the album that would make me more excited for the album..
The problem with "Dedication" is that I was so heartbroke during the album that I felt like I had to prove that we were better then the competition. Production wise I was trying to do what other people were doing just better. With "Nuchalawoyya" I'm just having fun, trying to be creative. "Trying to uplift so we make feel good music, eha ha na ha let's start the movement."
I did a collection of mixtapes in between Dedication and Nuchalawoyya. But I never put much effort into them I was kind of uninspired. I had to deal with my heartbreak, and I was kind of psycho for a while. Got in fights, got jumped, did some questionable things. After dealing with VK passing I kind of held a lot in, and then we had the trial for Billy Moreland (BRoyal) where we took a very public loss in court. That was so hard, I wanted revenge, and then when I got back to Washington I just felt numb. Like nothing inspired me, I couldn't feel. How do you live when you have nothing to look forward to?
"Relationships in another U son, to get over the old girl you gotta get a new one." -Joe Budden
I met a mexican girl who got at me and she was Soooo beautiful. She made me excited to be alive again, gave me something to look forward to. Even though we ain't together anymore she kind of put me back on track and got me back into Nuchalawoyya. Reminded me that I'm dope.
"If I could go through all that and still be breathing. Bitch Bend Over I'm here for a reason.." Kanye West
I feel confident with the album because it's us. It's new, different, and real. Got me back to trying. Still sleeping on couches but now I'm thriving. With one key message for my natives and my people.. Represent
Dru-P
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