NAV & Ari Lennox Deliver Nostalgia With Their Latest Albums
During a lot of my conversations about music with my aging friends, I typically encounter the same talking points, “this generation’s music is trash” or “I don’t know who a household name is now.” These are sentiments that abuse my eardrums like a broken record stuck on the same note. However, aside from the frequent reminders of how old my friends and I are getting, these sentiments reveal a truth about our music fandom: there is a consistent nostalgic yearning for simpler times.
It seems like everybody reaches a point where they join the “get off my lawn” music crowd. The same crowd that reminisces about old days whether they were alive to experience that era or not. The people whose minds become increasingly closed off with every new artist whose name has no face attached to it. The hyperbolic sense of importance and current relevance for an artist who made their debut fifteen years ago. It seems to be that time for a good portion of my friends, and I find myself relating to them in rare circumstances. So this leaves the question, which artists can the new entries into music geriatricness rely on to give them that dose of nostalgia they so desperately crave?
Coming to deliver what my friends and a part of me have been yearning for are NAV and Ari Lennox. On the surface, these two artists have no business being mentioned in the same sentence as each other. NAV is an autotune master whose production and vocal sonics sound reminiscent of the early 2016 SoundCloud era. On the other side, Ari Lennox is a traditional R&B artist who currently finds herself in a situation that can be best described as an amazing talent that exists a few eras too late. However, when you realize both artists released music on September 9th, with NAV releasing Demons Protected by Angels and Ari Lennox releasing age/sex/location, and the nostalgia both albums bring to their fans, the parallels become more straightforward.
The old-timey feel is prevalent on NAV’s Demons Protected By Angels from the intro track, ‘Count On Me,’ which sets the tone for the rest of the album. When we look back at the Soundcloud era we think about depressing lyrics laid on melodic Hip-Hop beats. ‘Count On Me’ brings that nostalgia with NAV rapping about himself as the only person he can rely on. Lyrics like “I look great on the surface, but I’m not doing well” and “not the happiest person, but nobody could tell, 'cause I never cry for help, I'd rather cry by myself” echo similar sentiments that Soundcloud era fans related to when they were first exposed to NAV, Lil Uzi Vert, Juice WRLD, Trippie Redd, and other Soundcloud legends.
As we see many legends of the Soundcloud era start to chase a new sound to ingratiate themselves to new fans, NAV takes the opposite approach by doubling down on the sound that made him popular on Demons Protected By Angels. Tracks like the previously mentioned ‘Count On Me,’ ‘Never Sleep’ featuring Lil Baby & Travis Scott, ‘Last of the Mohicans,’ and ‘Intersteller’ featuring Lil Uzi Vert would’ve had the same impact five years ago as they do today, showing an aspect of timelessness that is underrated from the SoundCloud era.
On the flip side, Ari Lennox’s nostalgic feel comes from the song construction and beat selection that she showcases throughout age/sex/location. Aside from the music, the nostalgic element of this album can be best understood by listening to track five, ‘A/S/L – Interlude.’ Throughout this 38-second interlude, Ari Lennox talks about the era when internet chatrooms like Aim were prevalent. “That's how you would greet someone, A-S-L, I mean, I would just be—, I would lie, I would catfish, it's just more so, like, playing on a different time, playing on chatrooms, internet, meeting people, like, this is dating,” Ari says as she describes her chatroom experiences.
As for the actual music on age/sex/location, the scarce use of 808s as well as the slow pace on most of the album is a noticeable detour from the popular R&B of today. As the line between Hip-Hop and R&B continues to be blurred, this latest album leaves no room for Ari Lennox to be placed in any box aside from a talented R&B singer. Tracks like ‘Queen Space’ featuring Summer Walker, ‘Leak It’ featuring Chlöe, and ‘Pressure’ deserve to be played on repeat without feeding into what many old-school R&B fans would consider the gimmicks of modern R&B.
Although their music sounds different, NAV and Ari Lennox were able to bring their fans a nice dose of nostalgia throughout their latest efforts. Both artists were able to do a good job of bringing fans to a previous time, allowing their music to cut through the current 2022 landscape to deliver one of the best weekends of music all year. Fans who find themselves with a distaste for the newer generations of music have found gems in the headline albums released on September 9th.
