Typical for 2017, memes crudely but succinctly illustrate this divide by positioning Nav as a geek or corner store employee, nudging at the model minority myths attached to South Asians, as well as taking jabs at his masculinity. Using the N-word in his music is Nav’s way of suggesting proximity to an experience that ultimately isn’t equivalent. This is a distinct cultural legacy, something that carries through an overwhelming majority of South Asian households I know, established by colonization and perpetuated by American white supremacy. Giving Nav's lyrics a pass is faulty because it ignores the massive problem of racism directed at black people by South Asians both in the diaspora, as well as in countries like India where African students are routinely assaulted. I don’t suspect all audiences are open to receiving a new artist as such, especially at a time when only extreme charisma can can help public figures succeed (and, sometimes, evade personal accountability). It’s still too early to refer to his career as a success, though lyrics like, “Now I pay nothin’ for my sneakers 'cos I’m Nav,” certainly indicate he’s on the up, but Nav’s positioning suggests some people would like to market a South Asian artist in the same way as his black peers. Within this context, it feels less like the management apparatus behind Nav somehow isn’t aware of a rhetorical shift and is committing an elaborate trolling instead. Which is a strange contrast to how pop music today can so adeptly absorb and reflect the contemporary language of social justice. So it then makes sense to think about how pop music has transmogrified to the point that a non-black artist, co-signed by one of the biggest black pop stars in the world, can openly use racial epithets in his work.
But I’m also definitively aware that if Nav is being financially, or at least socially, rewarded despite his vocabulary, people criticizing him for saying the N-word on Twitter probably won’t change shit. ( In an old interview Plies gets at the root of the contextual mess this conversation often yields: “On some G shit, I can never be straight with that, but if a nigga from where you from straight with it, that’s on y’all… don’t offend me, but if you put ‘fuck’ in front of that, or ‘pussy’ in front of that I got a problem.”) I’m definitively of the opinion that it’s not a word non-black people should use, particularly when, like in Nav’s music, it feels extraneous and a juvenile attempt to signify belonging that could be better expressed by someone whose livelihood trades in words. Given the rapid expanding of our knowledge of race-based issues, the debate over who can and can't say the N-word feels like low hanging fruit in a bigger conversation about oppression: it’s simply way too easy to weaponize, observe, and penalize. This isn’t the first time rap’s fielded an N- word controversy: one arguably tanked Kreayshawn’s career, Heems of Das Racist was confronted at a public lecture, and French Montana, DJ Khaled, and Fat Joe have all been called out at various points for their usage. In the coming months, Nav, who has opened for a couple of dates on Drake's European Boy Meets World Tour, will perform at Coachella and release a collaboration record with Metro Boomin. The record features a collaboration between the two, “Some Way,” that’s unfortunately not bhangra, but a glowing rap and R&B hybrid track that sounds like House Of Balloons-era Weeknd. In late February - just over a year since his self-released tracks “Brown Boy” and “Ten Toes Down” went viral, 10 months after receiving the coveted Kylie co-sign, and about six months after featuring on Travis Scott’s Birds In The Trap Sing McKnight single “Biebs In The Trap” - Nav released a self-titled album on The Weeknd’s XO imprint. From the thick of this sociological brew comes Nav, a rapper-producer of Indian Punjabi descent.
It’s how someone like Ramriddlz, “an Egyptian kid from outside Toronto winds up singing dancehall songs,” can even exist. A lot has been written about Toronto’s ethnic alchemy, and the successes of Drake and The Weeknd have spurred unique conversations about the cultural negotiations that can happen here between young people of different ethnic backgrounds.
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