The week I meet Nashville-based rapper Nathan John Feuerstein, AKA NF, at his Tennessee home in April, his latest record – Hope – hits No 2 in both the Billboard Hot 100 and the UK album chart, as well as in Australia, Canada and Norway, and No 1 in the Netherlands. He has form: his last two albums topped the US charts. This summer, he will embark on a 30-date North America arena tour; each show on its October European leg has already sold out. The walls of the home studio space in the outskirts of America’s Music City are lined with platinum records from across the globe. Yet, despite his evident success, the 32-year-old musician is something of an unknown entity; elusive, with little name recognition beyond his loyal fanbase. Rarely will you hear his music on the radio; his latest album received little by way of media fanfare or reviews. And, lying back on a large cream sofa, he says he likes it that way.
“In the music industry the perception of how big artists are, and how big they really are, is often really different,” Feuerstein says. “Most people would say I’m small. I might be under the radar, and rarely have my day-to-day life interrupted, but I can come to your city and sell 10,000 tickets, and release albums that sell. I’d rather have a touring business and a culty fanbase behind the scenes – be actually killing it – than have people think I’m killing it. The way I look at it, I have the best of both worlds.”
It is just one of the apparent contradictions that shape our 90-minute conversation. He is signed to a Christian imprint of Universal Music Group, came up in the Christian music scene, and often raps about God, but rejects the label of Christian rapper. “I started out in the Christian space,” he says, “but I didn’t really like it … it’s not where I see myself today.”
Throughout his career, comparisons have been made with Eminem, and not solely because there aren’t many other chart-topping white rappers from Michigan. Certainly on NF’s earlier records, his childhood hero’s influence was somewhat inescapable. As Pitchfork put it in its review of his 2019 album, The Search, Eminem’s “brooding persona and twisty delivery NF copies with the reverence of a 16th-century Japanese painter replicating the masters”. But previously he has been reluctant to bring Eminem up at all.
“Most of the time,” he replies, when I ask why, “I don’t go into [Eminem] in interviews. It’s the headline people try to twist.” That said, Feuerstein brings up Eminem repeatedly. “Something you only experience once is that moment when, for the first time, an artist impacts your life deeply. For me, that was Eminem in my teens. He’s the biggest influence on my music still.”
And while his lyrics explore the most personal of topics – childhood abuse, mental health struggles, his mum’s suicide – he seems guarded in person, not wanting conversationally to give too much away: “I say what I want to say in my music,” he says. “I don’t want to do it in interviews. Not being so visible, and not doing interviews? That has worked for me.”
Still, we cover some ground. Feuerstein grew up in Gladwin, small-town Michigan. “We lived in a trailer for a while. My parents got divorced when I was young. Dad remarried. I lived with my grandparents. I got into music at some stage. I had anger issues – it was a release.” He had a karaoke machine in his bedroom. One microphone would point towards his CD player pumping out a beat, on the other he would freestyle. The results would be recorded on to tape. Raised in a Christian family, faith-based music was a big influence early on: he namechecks two-time Grammy-winning Christian rapper Lecrae, Andy Mineo and LA’s Gospel Gangstaz. In his late teens, he worked as an electrician while uploading self-produced original tracks to YouTube. In 2014, he signed to Capitol Christian Music Group (then EMI Christian Music Group).
He seems reluctant to talk much about his break in Christian music (his first two albums after signing a record deal charted at No 1 in the US Christian charts). “It’s not that I didn’t want to be with a mainstream label,” he says, “but that’s all I knew.” Content-wise, his music did reference “the Almighty”, but he felt his outlook didn’t chime with other artists on the scene. “In the Christian world everyone wants to pretend everything is OK,” he says. “It feels sometimes like the end of songs have to have this great, positive ending. I wasn’t there. My music didn’t fit, because I didn’t feel that way.”
It wasn’t his only misgiving about the Christian scene: “There are tons of details I could give you about things that didn’t make sense,” he says. “People used God as an excuse for why they didn’t do their jobs well … If you’re playing a show at a church, it’s not really your show. You’re an entertainer. At church shows, people turn up, but it’s not for you.” He started to swap church gigs for clubs, and never looked back. Mostly, however, he says he realised what separated him from self-defined Christian rappers was his output’s intent. “I’m not a worship artist,” he says. “That’s not my music’s purpose. I don’t think I’m a preacher. I want anyone to listen to my music, believe in God or not.” He sees himself, instead, as a rapper who is Christian and references his faith in his work, much like many contemporary hip-hop artists: Kendrick Lamar, J Cole, Drake.
While God is a definite presence in NF’s lyrics, far more notable is darkness and pain. Previously, songs have included Hate Myself (“Suicide thoughts come and go like a guest to me”) and Trauma (“Scream and yell, but I feel speechless / Ask for help, you call it weakness”). There’s also How Could You Leave Us, a 2016 track about his mum’s suicide by overdose.
“The first song about my mum? It was a dark, sad, emotional track,” he says. “The hardest thing I ever recorded.” Back then, the raw pain was palpable (“I ain’t gon’ say that I forgive you ’cos it hasn’t happened … If you really cared for me, then where you at then?”) There’s another track about his mum on his new album, titled Mama, that serves as a tonal shift (“I ever make it up there when I see you / I hope you’re smilin’, ’cos you deserve it”). Generally, he’s in a better place today. “I’m not all perfect now,” he says. “I put an album out called Hope, but I’ve still got a lot of growing to do. A couple of weeks ago I was depressed for three days straight. But I do feel hopeful more than I used to [be]. When I wrote [the 2019 album] The Search I was so depressed that I couldn’t function.”
I had arrived in Nashville expecting to discuss the city’s burgeoning Christian rap scene with an artist who, on paper, I believed to be its biggest hitmaker. Instead, and despite my best efforts, we’re talking in broad terms about abandonment, being controlling, and how determined he is to build a stable childhood for his young son. It is this vulnerability, alongside his technical rap ability (much like Eminem, he has a capacity to squeeze impressively long lyrics into the smallest of spaces) that explains Feuerstein’s popularity among a fiercely dedicated online crowd. As his following grows, how will he handle an increase in interest? He seems unsure. He’s certainly struggling to enjoy his success to date. “My wife tells me I’m always stressed about the next show, the next video, the next album … I never enjoy the here and now. Before you know it, I’ll be 40 and done making music. And, man, I never enjoyed it? I’m trying to work on that.”
For all the distance he puts between himself and the Christian scene, it’s on the topic of faith and religion that he seems most at ease. “Everything in the world works together,” he says, now smiling, “Like, animals taking a dump and using it to grow more food? It’s crazy bro. Babies being born. God had to create that … I’m sure every artist says this,” he says, ‘but I really need music. I believe in God. I think we all have a purpose: as human beings we need one; a reason to exist. I think my purpose on this planet is to make music. So that’s what I’ll do.”
NF’s album Hope is out now.
