Nate Feuerstein (NF) has become one of the top names in hip-hop. What sets him apart, and what draws me to him, is the fact that he refuses to sing about wasting time on anything hollow. He makes clean rap but never fails to make it almost unbearably relatable. 

If you listened to his last album, 2017’s Perception, you’ll know that the topics talked about in his latest are not new to NF. He’s simply telling his story in real time. Perception’s success is what allowed NF to keep that same raw approach on The Search.

It’s hard to live in today’s society. The culture we live in is as divided as ever. And that’s why NF’s music is thriving. We are interested in hearing something that’s not merely a distraction. NF refuses to cut corners. He speaks unashamedly about mental illness, imposter syndrome, and the toll that our fame-focused culture is taking on today’s youth.

I would say the best lyric that sums up the album’s main theme comes from the title track, where he says: “I’m lookin’ for the map to hope / You seen it?” I think I might want that tattooed onto me. The album is an absolute mountain: 19 tracks clocking in at an hour and 12 minutes. This isn’t an album that you throw on in your car as background noise. This album demands your absolute attention. That’s something I rarely find in today’s music, so I reveled in it for quite some time before trying to talk about it.

The album truly speaks for itself. Anything I write here will either only repeat what the album says better than I will, or completely prove the point that Feuerstein is trying to make. I got into NF when my younger brother started talking incessantly about Perception. I took him to the Boston date of that album tour and it convinced me that NF was someone to add to the list of the few rappers I have in my repertoire. Rap is my bottom genre choice, so if I’m listening to a rap album, it’s really worth listening to. 

I can’t talk about stand-out tracks or hard hitting lyrics because literally every song stands out and every lyric hits hard. “I Miss the Days” is one of the softer tracks but it made me tear up because it’s all about childhood and remembering the days when we didn’t have anything to worry about other than what time we’d get to go out to play. He hasn’t had it easy in his life, which is something he speaks often about. 

NF is not afraid to bring attention to the rough edges in his life. In “Nate”, he recalls being young and watching his parents go through a divorce, as well as watching his mother fall into drug addiction. He ends the verse by saying “You look uncomfortable / I’m sorry / Let me change the subject”. 

What I appreciate most about NF is the fact that he doesn’t pull a Kanye and say life was hard but now I have a life of luxury and beautiful women and everything I could ask for. He’s honest about the fact that life is a lot more complicated than ever before. He’s become a spokesperson for being grounded in reality and realizing that experiencing success doesn’t magically mean that life will be smooth sailing, and that it’s hard, but it’s okay.

5/5

by Nadia Paiva

Nadia Paiva has been a music enthusiast since she can remember. Going to shows is her main pastime. The other is being upset when she can’t go to shows. This is her first official venture into writing about music. You can follow her on Twitter.