On first listen of the track and viewing the video, you can really appreciate the old school vibes on this one. Not that it’s retro or anything; in fact, most everything about this joint is very relevant and fresh, but there’s definitely a nod to the past days of hip-hop in there.
Director Chito Floriano strikes again with this black and white vid. Floriano again proves himself a master of the street roaming language, as proven by his recent work for Belve Peso. Unlike the Belve clip, in which the rapper is the only person in the whole video, Nate (The Great) embraces a sort of urban universality without getting pretentious. It’s just him and his homies of different origins kicking around the streets of his hometown San Francisco. Yet everything seems to speak about something bigger, culturally; at least that’s how it felt when the credits rolled.
This young emcee has a way with hip-hop that’s completely his own, as demonstrated by his latest offering, the Common Folk LP. “C.O.T.C.” features a dreamy beat with light synths that don’t slack off for anything. Nate puts forth his mindset in an animated way without resorting to an aggressive delivery; by the same token, he never loses precision in his words. His voice and message never drift off or get lost in the haze.
Nate is surely a rhymesayer to be known by a wider audience and I’m sure he’s out there right now trying to get people locked into his mindset, having a field day roaming the streets of his thoughts. That’s something any good rapper from any era hope to achieve.