Key Nyata

Seattle is on hip-hop’s radar after the explosion of Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. Key Nyata, a rapper/producer a part of SpaceGhostPurrp’s Raider Klan, is making noise on his own. Check out what he has to offer.

Standout: “Thx Gvrdxxn”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wT7Ii5YyKs

Also check out: “Pitch Blvck”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCxy1k6qbkA

And:“Suicide Capital”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEOTFWJky50

Age: 18

Hometown: Seattle, WA

I grew up listening to: Tha click, E-40, C-Bo, N.W.A., Wu-Tang and Sade to name a few.

Most people don’t know I: I played sports most of my life.

My style’s been compared to: Not that many people so far.

My standout records and/or moments to date have been: Performing at Coachella and meeting Method Man.

My goal in Hip-Hop is: Have longevity, continue to make good music and be creative as I can be.

I’m gonna be the next: Nobody. Just me.

To check out more of my music go to: Follow me on Twitter (@KeyNyataBRK), SoundCloud and YouTube. - XXL Magazine

The young Key Nyata is undoubtedly one of the most exciting artists to come out of the burgeoning Raider Klan scene. Making a big splash for his song “Get Fucked Up 1994” (or at least that’s what it was called when it was posted to SpaceGhostPurrp’s YouTube account) Key Nyata was suddenly sought after, including by us, which ended up in his inclusion on our Hyperbolic Chamber Music posse cut.

The Raider Klan aren’t exactly the most forthcoming with their music, at least as far as presenting it in easily attainable collections, so I’m really excited to see that Key Nyata just dropped a brand new compilation, collecting a bunch of the tracks we’ve heard from him as well as adding in 4 brand new ones. VWXSXMX! Awesome. It says awesome. The Phonkilation is available now.
- Mishka

Around the world, deep, deep underground, there’s a movement swelling, and Key Nyata is playing a part in it. At the outset of his fledgling career, the 18-year-old Garfield High student connected with the Raider Klan, a loose collective of young rappers and producers that gravitate toward bass-heavy, narcoticized beats and cynical, narcissistic lyrics, a sound modeled by a rapper/producer in Miami who goes by the name SpaceGhostPurrp. It’s a very young man’s game, and at the moment, Nyata is its sole practitioner in Seattle—an outsider musician embracing an outsider style. Friday, Oct. 19, Neumos

What attracts you to the Raider Klan style?
It’s not really that I’m attracted to it. It’s just what I am. It’s how I feel. I’m a Raider inside and out.

What did you grow up listening to?
I grew up listening to music from everywhere—Southern shit, East Coast shit but mostly West Coast shit. A lot of underground ’90s rap and late-’80s rap. Some jazz singers, ’90s R&B. And this is what I still listen too. Plus some of the homies—BRK [Black Raider Klan] of course, [Seattle collective] Moor Gang, Odd Future, etc.

What’s your biggest non-musical influence?
God.

Is there a connection between Seattle and Miami?
I’ve been to both and there’s no big similarities.

You got attention nationally before being noticed in Seattle. How did that happen?
Instead of starting off in my city, I just used the Internet. Eventually people caught on with the help of the Klan and all that, and growth is still happening. BRK is finna blow up.

You’re playing Heineken City Arts Fest with Fresh Espresso and Kingdom Crumbs. Do you know those guys? Have you played together before?
I know Jarv Dee from Kingdom Crumbs but that’s it. Jarv is like my big bro, and I’ve never actually heard Fresh Espresso’s music.

How do you prepare for a live set? What’s your style of performance? You make a lot of your own beats—do you need a DJ or hype guy onstage?
Usually I just try to chill out, make sure I eat and drink something. But I don’t really know my style of performance! And all I need is a DJ. Hype man is cool but I don’t need it.

Photo by Steve Korn.

- See more at: http://www.cityartsonline.com/issues/seattle/2012/10/qa-key-nyata#sthash.RR6N5jTW.dpuf - City Arts Magazine

90'S BABY
?As one of the youngest and most naturally gifted phonk rap-prodigys from SpaceGhostPurrp's Raider Klan, Key Nyata’s light is destined to shine through soon enough from behind the shadow of the 4AD-signed path beater. Yet only 17 years of age, the Seattle native already has an impressive nine years of rapping, along with a good amount of production experience to show for himself. On his recent Two Phonkey mixtape, Key Nyata put his pitch-shifting vision of trippy, progressive (and–to an extent–imagined) nostalgia into full effect, touching on elements from 90s underground Memphis, Houston and Compton, while at the same time sounding more current than the chick on your time dial.
In the process of finishing up his senior year in high school, Key Nyata is currently working with underground heroes Blue Sky Black Death, Mr. Muthafuckin’ eXquire and Vince Staples, and is wrapping up his fourth, self-made solo project, the Dragon Ball Z-indebted Goku Nyata EP. Fresh off his Seattle guest appearance at the much talked-about SpaceGhostPurrp and Trash Talk tour, we caught up with the young phonkslinger to talk Raider Klan, Two Phonkey and that 90s shit.
How was your show with Trash Talk and Purrp?
That shit was fun as fuck. It was pretty live. Me and Purrp were basically regulating in the fucking moshpit.
How did that come about in the first place?
Just connections. You know Odd Future fuck with us and they wanted to put together a show that nobody would expect. Like heavy punk shit mixed with rap. It’s crazy but it’s a good-ass combination when you get it at a concert, cause people go fucking crazy.
With you being based in Seattle – do you get a chance to catch up with the other Raider Klan members a lot?
Not a lot, but when I do it’s all love. Everybody’s family in Raider Klan.
You guys seem to be bonding over musical backgrounds, too.
Hell yeah, we just fuck with that underground shit. I grew up listening to a lot of Westcoast underground music. When I was around certain people there was a lot of southern music too cause I have southern family, so I would hear both ends of the rap. And of course the early Eastcoast shit too, and Quasimoto and DOOM and niggas like that. But yeah, a lot of my influence comes from the early Westcoast shit. It’s really my favorite music for the most part.
I was really impressed by the “Pitch Black” video because it had such an NWA vibe to it.
Yeah they’re some of my favorite rappers of all time. They just make dope ass music. I love the fucking beats that they use. All the bass and shit. A lot of people don’t know that the Westcoast introduced heavy ass bass to the rap game. The Westcoast and the South pretty much at the same time, they started using all the 808 knocks and shit. Before that it was basically just kicks and snares up on the Eastcoast. And I just love bass.
Even though NWA in particular is more on the late 80s side of things, do you think that the ‘90s are making a comeback right now?
Definitely. I feel like that’s good though. It was the golden era of music. There’s nothing better than that in my perspective. From ‘88 to ‘98, that was the best period.
What do you think is it that attracts people to the Raider Klan?
Probably the whole swagger of it. Everybody has their own sound and swag, but I feel like we as a collective just draw people in cause it’s something they haven’t seen before but it also reminds them of something they heard before or heard about. It’s like a collage of the old and the new.
And it’s also much darker than most of what is out right now. So in a sense it’s also a matter of going against the grain of what is popular. Is that also part of the approach?
Yeah we don’t make fucking mainstream music. That shit is stupid. It all sounds the same to me.
Compared to your previous releases, Two Phonkey seems like a more focused approach, it sounds a bit more cohesive in a sense. Did you approach that any differently?
No, what you’re hearing on that is pretty much just me developing as an artist and solidifying my sound. I mean I definitely put it together so it flowed very well, but I didn’t sit down and piece it together or anything.
Where did you record it?
Just on my little setup at home. That’s also why it’s lo-fi. Niggas think that lo-fi shit is a gimmick but it’s actually just how our music sounds cause we don’t have anything better we can use. It’s hard to get studio time all the time cause I don’t have any money to pay for no studio time. But I can record myself at home, easy. So it is what it is.
What does being phonkey mean to you?
Well phonk is in your soul. It’s all about being true to yourself, knowing about yourself, knowing what’s in your mind and knowing how to express yourself–in a way that some people will get and some people will not get. And phonk rap in itself to me and to phonk rappers–it’s lyrical. Cause the way that phonk rappers rap, it may not be your conventional punchline bar, but if you - Live For The Funk

If you can't fully read that title, you probably aren't familiar with the Raider Klan — Or RVIDXR KLVN, as they would type it. Their movement is unofficial, underground, and online, a sprawling global gang rather than a block-based one. They type in "glyphs," substituting occult triangles, V's and X's for most vowels (that's "Seattle Raider" up there if you haven't figured it out yet). They wear all black '90s-style snapbacks, jerseys and jackets to match their obsession with '90s underground rap, their main source of inspiration, aesthetics and sample material, despite most of them being '90s babies themselves.

Miami's SpaceGhostPurrp, who has emerged as the de facto KLVN leader thanks to the widespread buzz stemming from his BLVCKLVND RVDIX: 66.6 FM mixtape and subsequent collabs with big names like A$AP Rocky and Juicy J, posted this video on his YouTube channel this week. The young Raider clad in Mariners gear rapping over a sample loop from Memphis rapper Gangsta (not Project) Pat's slow-burner "I Wanna Smoke" (which samples this song, ain't music great?) is Key Nyata, apparently a Seattle teenager. The RVIDXR KLVN movement, though it may seem rooted in the South, is alive in the Northwest.

At first glance it may seem like nothing new, because it's really not. The beat is a sample loop and the lyrics are mostly standard blunt-puffing stoner rap stuff, but Nyata manages to capture some of that dark Southern Phonk sound that early Three 6 had. The switch to Nyata's slowed-up "VLL BLVXK (SPVCX WHXP)" track, which has an awesomely trippy video of its own, adds an element of DJ Screw's Texas Trill to the mix. Older hiphop heads may cry foul over the thought of Tumblr-using teenagers downloading '90s Dirty South albums to sample them on their computers, but I see this as another form of rebellion against the designer-brand pop-rap standard that has become so widely accepted in rap and hiphop these days. Key Nyata and most of the RVIDXR KLVN weren't old enough to properly appreciate the golden-age output of the 1990s, so can you really blame them for wanting to resurrect and restore some of the dark, spooky, fucked up shit that made rap music the scourge of White America before the Powers That Be decided to tame it instead? - The Stranger