NAHreally & The Expert – Smarter Than I Am

The Expert returns with NAHreally, dropping the LP The Blip on March 29th on Rucksack Records. Ahead of that, listen to the single Smarter Than I Am below. NAHreally’s lyrics are introspectively everyday Larry David-style reflections, built upon an exchange of nearly 100 beats over 18 months with The Expert.

The Expert recalls:

“I use samples from lots of different records and add my own bass lines, drums, and synth lines—such as the outro piano and strings on ‘All At Once,’ even adding my own ‘aah’ background vocals à la Pete Rock. However, my overall goal is that I want all parts and samples to sound like they came from the same source. So you actually can’t decipher what’s been played or sampled; to make it sound like all the elements were always meant to be together.”

Smarter Than I Am is out now on all platforms.

Some promo blurb:

On BLIP, rapper NAHreally (Jersey City, NJ, USA) shares witty observations of ordinary life over airy, melodic beats by The Expert (Dublin, Ireland). For the highly original and unpretentiously fun album, the emcee-producer duo is joined by Open Mike Eagle, Hemlock Ernst (b.k.a. Samuel T. Herring of Future Islands), Dillon (Full Plate), and Jesse The Tree (Strange Famous Records).

BLIP marks a hat-trick of collaborative albums for The Expert. Last year’s Ritual with Stik Figa reached a myriad of Best Albums of 2023 lists and was also praised by Public Enemy’s Chuck D (“Very interesting, sounds good. I love the psychedelic—wow…”). Together with Jermiside, The Expert kicked off his series of psychedelic hip-hop records with The Overview Effect, featured on NPR‘s Best New Music and Bandcamp Daily’s monthly column The Best Hip-Hop, among others.

For NAHreally, BLIP is his official debut on vinyl, following a range of digital tapes with, most notably, 2022’s HACKINAWAY (Mutombo Records) and 2021’s Loose Around the Edges. In the words of DEF Magazine: “NAHreally’s music channels the mid-aughts free-flowing jazz rap renaissance while infusing it with the lyrical abstraction of top modern underground MCs.”