A milestone five albums deep and now fully independent through his Tall Racks Records imprint, Nasty C’s latest album ‘Free’  has all the hallmarks of a victory lap. There’s the freedom from contractual obligations and the musical flexibility to explore Trap, R&B, Maskandi, and Rock, but perhaps what’s most palpable has been Nasty’s unrestricted creative explorations surrounding the release of ‘Free’. The album rollout has seen Nasty in real-life promotion mode through his Pass The Aux shows and Ivyson Tour,  pulling off a fan engagement masterclass with a job experience series and aligning his brand with Doritos.   

If his previous solo project, 2023’s ‘I Love It Here,’ represented Nasty C settling into his worldly duties and responsibilities, ‘Free’ is him further embracing this new version of himself and trading external pressures for internal peace. His artistic outlook is similarly trained inward, balancing out international market appeal with the localised refrains that define both “Leftie (Dlala Ngcobo)” and “MSP.”

Breezing through punchy tracks while wading through the life and romantic experiences of a 20-something alongside Blxckie, Usimamane, DJ Speedsta, Tellaman, and Tshego, Nasty sounds as comfortable as ever. While admirable and even enviable, it’s this precise sense of comfort that sometimes leads to an overfamiliarity. Owing to the sheer magnitude of his musical output, Nasty C has tread several relatable topics across multiple mixtapes and albums. Once more, themes of love (“Selfish”), religion (“Evidence”), and loyalty (“Switch”) show up on ‘Free,’ and they’re still couched within the similar sonic frameworks of his earlier offerings. 

With only four songs breaching the three-minute mark across ‘Free‘ and the criminally short “10 Shooters” and “Other Plans” making for a swift listen, there’s an unresolved feeling that comes from the album lacking any lasting moments of tension. Between the sound and content, this is a perfectly serviceable outing bound to rack up streams due to the ease of the listening experience, but everything points to the double-edged sword of Nasty’s artistry. His ability to be lyrical and seamlessly get in his melodic bag means a singular, cohesive direction is sacrificed at the altar of his artistic desires. Nasty’s fluidity is spellbinding but also a limitation.

It’s a freedom he’s earned, and while there are no shackles here, this expansiveness can be restrictive in its own way. Although being unbound by expectation anchors this release, it can sometimes feel like a better experience may have resulted from Nasty being more deeply bound to a concept. Like Nasty C finding his own north star, this album could have been more firmly rooted by attaching its musical direction and penmanship to an overarching ethos. 

Across ‘Free,’ Nasty C ably captures his feelings and shares his thoughts, but a complementary manifesto that can thread these songs together is lacking. This isn’t to say there is no thought behind this in totality, and the evidence is in the great sequencing and other creative areas like the album artwork, telling a story of its own. Even the outfit Nasty dons on the cover has been tied into his roll-out. What’s missing is how each song relates to the idea of freedom and extends the worldbuilding Nasty has so clearly put a lot of effort into.

It’s to his credit that when Nasty offers glimpses of his growth, he provides the album’s strongest moments in this vein. Almost midway through “That’s Wassup,” there is a poignant reflection on Nasty’s evolving relationship with fame and his role in the wider familial context. The line, “All my nieces and my nephews started smiling when they see me. They say, ‘Uncle, we just saw you on the TV,’” is as much about his status in the game as it is about how his career trajectory translates into his domestic life. 

This introspective lyricism over pensive piano keys is a perfect example of Nasty C’s duality at play; it’s something that “Soft” accomplishes as well. On this luxurious anthem, the artist born Nsikayesizwe David Junior Ngcobo combines the hustle of striving towards your goals and the reward of attaining them, while folding together infectious melodies and smooth bars. Form meets substance perfectly here, and this is the template that could elevate ‘Free’ from good to great over its 16 tracks.

It’s a sobering feeling to have experienced Nasty’s growth as both an artist and a person over the past years. First as a teenage prodigy and globe-trotting African voice, to a new father, and now as an independent artist occupying the space between being ‘the coolest kid in Africa’ and an elder statesman in South African Hip-Hop. One of the coolest things about ‘Free’ is the respective appearances of Blxckie and Usimamane, Durban rap stars who represent two distinct musical generations that have prospered after Nasty C’s initial come-up. 

Aside from swatting off suggestions of beef brewing between him and both these and other prominent rappers, Nasty C embodies a maturity that can only come from experience, even if these experiences can sometimes be bad ones. ‘Free’ is the bookend of a phase in Nasty’s career that brought with it ups and downs, and somewhat kept him in a box. “I was tryna get that mass appeal and ended up signing them bad deals,” he shares on “That’s Wassup,” before adding that it was all in service of elevating,  “But that’s how we grow up.” 

For all the seasons Nasty C has experienced since his breakout and the peaks and valleys he’s traversed, his embrace of freedom is well deserved. This project is a capsule of lessons learned and the growth attained in the process, highlighting Nasty C’s liberation in many senses. Musically, there’s no concern for the limitations of genre or convention, and personally, a heightened appreciation of self permeates. This isn’t a victory lap in the pompous way the genre often demands, either.  It’s a conquering of doubt, mastery of desire, and shunning of unwanted influence. ‘Free’ derives its potency from this sense of being unburdened, but the expression of that feeling simultaneously undercuts its effectiveness. In pursuing artistic emancipation, Nasty C favours the explorative and, perhaps, leaves too little room for a sense of groundedness on ‘Free’.   

Listen to ‘Free’ here.