“...a loud raw gritty rock rap hip hop act defying all attempts to organize and classify… finally there’s someone willing to show us some god damn teeth. Twisting through the air with catlike grace, Nory laid down bars with tonal clarity and ease, because it’s the most obvious thing in the world that you should believe in him.”
Five months later, Nory and Nadine El Roubi are releasing NUCLEAR, and five months later, I still believe in Nory like I believe in no other. A characteristic punk twist on hip hop married with political and social commentary to create NUCLEAR, an EP that they deem “deeply rooted in identity.”
Saudi-American alt-hip-hop artist Nory has been “putting Saudi on the map” since 2022. Steadily making a name for himself with energy-packed performances, Nory delivers punk aggression and thoughtful political commentary (see “SHOT” and “DONT SIT RIGHT” off of his latest album FUCK THAT THIS THE RHYTHM). Sudanese-American Nadine El Roubi has been “redefining the Arab rap scene,” delivering powerful verses. NUCLEAR also features revered diasporic Iraqi-Canadian hip-hop artist NARCY.
Artist identity is front and center in the lead single “ENEMY OF THE STATE.” A maqam hijaz wraps around a punchy backbeat as Nadine and Nory introduce themselves: “If you ask them what’s my name/I’m enemy of the state.” “ENEMY OF THE STATE” kicks off sampling US President Donald Trump: “He’s an enemy of the state, you wanna know the truth… the enemy of the state is him and the group that control him.” While Trump may have originally been speaking on President Joe Biden, his administration’s recent aggressive actions towards the Middle East have left many Arab, African, and Muslim Americans as the target of this harsh rhetoric.
It is to this increasingly fiery backdrop, with global tensions skyrocketing during the US-Iran war, that NUCLEAR was released, boiling and biting and overflowing with reflections of our increasingly fractured world. Nory and Nadine El Roubi encapsulate life, love, and music during a global conflict that feels very much at home. Nory lasers in on the everyday racism on the lead single: “Don’t forget we’re in a state where police accost me/Just for having skin the same color as coffee.”
But what truly grounds NUCLEAR is the juxtaposition of regular interpersonal conflict with the global conflict and the escalating tensions in the US. Even as tensions increase in the US, the rap game goes on, as showcased in “U CANT TELL ME SHIT” and “NUCLEAR”. “NUCLEAR”, which Nadine calls “the catalyst” of the EP, echoes sentiments that both artists have expressed before, challenging the rap game to avoid complacency and stagnation: “Imma drop it like a bomb/put the game on the run/this shit go nuclear.”
The final two songs on NUCLEAR soften to explore interpersonal relationships through the lens of global conflict. Nadine El Roubi’s breathy vocals and Nory’s sentimental verse on “LIGHTBEAM” clash with missile imagery (“I can take you round the world if you want/Fly to the sun/Ride on my lightbeam”), and “REMEDY” wistfully closes out the EP, leaving us feeling in love at the end of the world. NUCLEAR is about love and hate and everything in between.
Both Nory and Nadine are community collaborators at heart, evidenced most clearly by the sporadic jam hosted after their EP release show. But they were near-collaborators for a while, with regular reintroductions from friends who swore they’d be brilliant together, before they sat down to create NUCLEAR. Nory told me about the iterative process he uses to approach creating a world, how it’s “just like emceeing another jam, reading the room.” He calls Nadine a genius. “She listens with her feelings,” he said, “and you can’t be wrong if you listen with your heart.”
