A motley sweater on a blustery fall evening or a muscular Chevy for a midday drive-by session: it makes plenty of sense
that Star Trak rap artist, FamLay, and his debut release, DAT MISSILE, are thrust into the hip hop arena.
Unique by sheer definition, FamLay thinks like no one, speaks like no one, acts like no one, and sure doesn't make music
like any one you've ever heard. The math? Sure, his DNA plays a humongous role, but the root of it all lies in where he was
born and raised--Huntersville, Norfolk, Virginia. Christened Nathaniel Johnson at birth, and self-named FamLay (the
childhood term everyone back in Norfolk used when addressing each other), it's glaringly obvious that every one of his
pores oozes the spirit and breath of his beloved city. "I'm just a cool nigga from Norfolk trying to show what the fuck we
do," he asserts in his uniquely measured southern drawl. "I'm here to fill a void that I know is there."
Norfolk, nicknamed Shark City by its residents due to the stealthy predatory nature of many of its inhabitants, is where
the blessed son of Virginia's musical career grew its first fins: As he tells it, his now maverick label-head and trusted
producer, Pharrell Williams, used to frequent Huntersville in the 1980s to visit his brother with whom FamLay was good
friends; eventually the two built their own solid rapport. As fate would have it, in 1998 on FamLay's birthday, he ran into
Williams and Pusha T (of The Clipse), at a nightclub. There, Williams requested that FamLay spit something cold on the
spot. FamLay gladly obliged him and the rest is history in the making.
The history: Carol Johnson, mother to FamLay and his older sister Sabrina, was a music lover of Herculean proportions. As a
result, FamLay grew up fanatically engulfed in the sounds of many music greats, including Marvin Gaye, Donny Hathaway and
Bobby Womack. The latter seemed to hold a special place in his mother's heart. "I used to think Bobby Womack was my daddy!"
he recollects, his dry-cum-dark humor intact. "She used to sit in the dark, playing Bobby Womack...crying and shit."
As heavily influenced as he was by his mother’s soul records, FamLay was also heavily impacted by Golden Era hip hop by the
likes of Run-D.M.C., MC Shan, and N.W.A. DJ Flute Dog, his older neighbor, brought such records home to a young and
impressionable Nathaniel. FamLay's home then, was essentially the "bootlegger's spot"--an after-hours haven where much
liquor was peddled and many rugs were cut. He compares it to the iconic scene in the Hughes Brothers' Menace II Society
that featured a young Caine surrounded by bottle-happy adults.
Having soaked up all this music, it came as no surprise that FamLay would shine years later during Olde English-induced
freestyle sessions with his coming-of-age friends. "I was drunk and I could do that shit forever!" Famlay fondly remembers.
"That was when people started really saying my shit was hot and asking if ever thought about rapping for real. So then I
started paying more attention and started writing. And the word just got around."
Williams, Chad Hugo--the other half of the Neptunes production outfit-- and business partner Rob Walker officially launched
their Star Trak record label in 2002 with The Clipse's platinum "Lord Willin'". On "FamLay Freestyle," which was a brief
yet rather illustrious solo effort, FamLay made his first appearance on disc and introduced the world to his brand of
paradoxical rap: where subtlety meets grit, vice meets virtue.
On the strength of his "Freestyle" a label bidding bout ensued; Def Jam was the victor. In 2003, FamLay released the
much-heralded and ahead-of-its-time, Neptunes-produced street anthem, "Rock-N-Roll." An avid West-Coast rap fan, Fam
employed a Too Short style on it. His dexterity was unquestionable.
Alas, FamLay unsuspectingly got caught up in the endless hullabaloo and bureaucratic hodgepodge endemic to the record
business; Def Jam faltered and dropped the ball later that year. "I ain't gonna front, the political side of the business
took a toll on me," FamLay states. "But all that happened to me, as far as the delay, has been a blessing in disguise. Back
then, I wasn't really ready." And then in full-on deadpan adds, "If I put my shit out then, I'd have hung my damn self!"
With Star Trak’s having found a new home under the Interscope/Geffen/A&M umbrella in mid- 2004, FamLay has spent the better
part of the last thirty months fine-tuning his much salivated-for debut album, DAT MISSILE, to a pulp. He is now ready,
eager even, to unleash his sterling opus on the world. DAT MISSILE, so named for the potent heroin trafficked on the
streets of Virginia, is a cohesion of 16 gems - produced chiefly by The Neptunes with, additional production from DJ Toomp
(T.I., Young Jeezy, Rick Ross), Three 6 Mafia (Ludacris, Young Buck, Mike Jones, etc.), and others.
On the introductory mid-tempo back-hander, "How You Wanna Carry It," produced by the aforementioned Toomp, the
self-appointed Shark City Shepherd --over haunting organs and thudding drums-- morbidly invites you into his world of foul
play, bloodshed and similar such scares. With lines like, "You're a leg hanging off an inner tube and I'm about to make you
miserable/Blood thirsty killers gonna get rid of you..." it's obvious that though his rhymes are steeped in the reality of
disenfranchised streets of Norfolk, he's also unafraid to harness the energy of his favorite genre of motion pictures.
FamLay is a self-admitted movie fiend, but even more specifically, a horror/slash movie junkie. He idolizes Steven King and
even swears that he's going to write and produce his own horror film soon. And why would you doubt him when over The
Neptunes' morose and agile bedding of "Head Bust," we hear him almost gleefully cautioning any perceived nemesis thus: "I
walk the streets with knife that the reaper carry/If you ain't heard about it read the obituary/It's getting late you
better leave 'cos it's very scary/Have you callin' on Jesus like Mary Mary."
However on relatively brighter fare like the club-friendly "Ten Toes Down" (which features track producer David Banner and
hook king Jazze Pha) and The Neptunes-helmed premier single, "The Beeper Record," FamLay displays rap stylings and cadence
second to none. On the former, the onset of the high hat in the first verse triggers Fam to sophisticatedly alternate his
flow with the grace and muscle of a veteran ballerina. On the latter, his vocal antics and gymnastics are damn near
parallel to those of Charlie Parker on the saxophone or Maynard Ferguson on the trumpet! Harnessing a dual flow that very
closely complements the pulsating production and retro subject matter, FamLay takes us on a trap narrative that is both
playful and threatening. "For me, it's as if my voice is another instrument and I'm talking back to it," he explains.
"That's the only way I can record."
Perhaps not surprisingly, Chad Hugo, who worked extensively in Virginia with FamLay on DAT MISSILE, is very much in awe of
his protege's studio ability and is confident his talents are about to be obvious to music fans. "I see him bringing the
southern VA flavor to the mainstream," Hugo says. "He's got his own drawl but it's also accessible. He has an innate old
school element; that rhyming-on-the-corner type of feel as if he's freestyling, but he takes his time on the lyrics. He's
raw and that's hard to find."
FamLay is convinced that what's even harder to find in hip hop today is a rapper who's an amalgamation of all the
sub-genres within the music itself. Primarily, he feels that having come up in Virginia – where there was no bias
whatsoever as to what hip hop got played– has been a colossal blessing. With Norfolk Naval Base fittingly proximal to Shark
City, the residents not only grew up with the drone of fighter jets overhead, but they were actually influenced by the
promiscuous musical tastes of the officers hailing from domestic points far and wide. On any given day growing up, FamLay
could have been listening to Spice 1, Scarface or Ol' Dirty Bastard with nil coastal bias.
The proof is in Mr. Johnson's pudding.
"I'm confident there is a space for me in the game because what I hear on the radio now is testament that y'all ain't seen
my side of the story yet," FamLay predicts. "If you listen to my music, you are listening to ME, right there in that
moment. You are listening to my thoughts and feelings. I've sold drugs ["Mr. Treatcha Nose," check!]; I done been to a club
and had a ball ["Billionaire Thug," check!]; it’s been days when I wanted to pull a driveby on a muthafucka ["You N A
Instant," check!]; it's been days when I just woke up happy ["Pimp Playa," check!]; and there's days when I just wanna get
some bitches ["Skrung Owt," check!]."
Now, who’s ever looked forward to the impact of a missile strike? That’s right, hit after hit.
