Welcome to the deep dive. Glad you could join
us today. Yeah. Today we are opening up the notes
on the fascinating Wikipedia page of an independent
American rapper and spoken word poet. Her name
is Nitti Scott. A really incredible artist. She
is. And whether you are actively catching up
on the underground hip hop scene or you're just,
you know, insanely curious about how modern artists
weave complex cultural ancestry into their media.
Which she does brilliantly. Exactly. This deep
dive is designed to deliver a major aha moment
for you. Because we're looking at a masterclass
here. It's a masterclass in an artist taking
total control of their narrative, preserving
culture, and really connecting the dots between
history and hip hop. Right. So, OK, let's unpack
this, because right from the jump, her origin
story is just this incredibly rich tapestry.
It really is. Nitzia Cecilia Scott was born on
October 10th, 1990. She was born in Michigan,
but she was raised down in Orlando, Florida.
And looking at her background, she has a Puerto
Rican mother and an African -American father
from New Orleans. Well, when you look at that
specific lineage. Yeah. You know, you were talking
about a collision of two of the most musically
foundational cultures in the Western Hemisphere.
Puerto Rico brings this deep, deep history of
Afro -Caribbean percussion, syncopation and storytelling
through rhythm. Right. The rhythms are so distinct.
Exactly. And then you have New Orleans, which
is essentially the cradle of black American music.
I mean, from jazz to blues to bounce. Yeah. Being
immersed in that level of diverse rhythmic culture
early on. it's going to leave a mark on how you
hear the world. It laid the critical groundwork
for her entire future musical identity. So true.
And I was looking at her early timeline in the
notes here. It mentions that by age 14, she was
attending an art school, majoring in creative
writing. Finding her voice early. Yeah, she was
finding her voice through personal expression,
specifically writing poetry. But then she makes
this leap. She takes those written words and
starts putting them over a beat to start rapping.
Mechanically speaking, How hard is that transition?
Like, is a good poet automatically going to be
a good rapper? Not necessarily. And that transition
from spoken word poet to rapper is a crucial
distinction to make. How so? Well, when you start
in poetry, your focus is entirely on the weight
of the word. the rhythm of the syllable itself,
and the narrative flow. The poem creates its
own internal time. Ah, okay. But rap forces you
to marry that word to a strict external rhythm,
the beat. You have to find the pocket. That makes
sense. A lot of poets actually struggle to confine
their free verse to a 4 -4 time signature. But
when a poet does figure out how to write a beat,
you get something special. You get Nitty Scott.
Precisely. You aren't just filling space on a
track with catchy ad libs. You are crafting a
rigorous, intentional story. And she was clearly
serious about making that transition work because
at just 17 years old, she packs up and moves
to Brooklyn, New York to pursue a career as a
rapper. I know that seems incredibly young to
dive headfirst into the absolute birthplace of
hip hop. How does she actually navigate that?
I mean, it takes an immense amount of conviction.
to show up in Brooklyn at 17 and say, I'm a rapper.
Especially Brooklyn. Right. New York hip hop
culture is notoriously protective of its standards.
You have to prove you have bars. You have to
prove your pen game is elite. Well, her pen game
was definitely being honed in a really unique
way. She ended up graduating from the Secondary
School for Journalism at John Jay High School
in Park Slope, Brooklyn. A great program. Yeah.
And there's this great detail from her sources.
She told MSN in an interview that if she hadn't
pursued music, she would have gone to college
to study journalism and broadcast communications.
What's fascinating here is how that specific
journalism background translates directly into
her art. Right. Journalism is about rigorous
storytelling. It's about seeking truth, providing
context and understanding the who, what, when,
where and why. A good journalist is an observer
of the human condition. And you see that in her
music. Absolutely. When you bring that discipline
into hip hop, you get a highly narrative, conscious
rap style. She treats her lyrics with the exact
same rigor that a journalist treats a long form
investigative piece. Wow. There is no wasted
breath. Every line is serving the broader story.
That investigative independent mindset brings
us perfectly to how she actually broke through
because she didn't take the traditional A &R
route, you know, shopping a demo tape to major
labels. No, no. In 2010, she had this massive
viral breakout moment. She dropped a freestyle
over Kanye West's Track Monster. For you listening,
think of this like a perfectly timed startup
launch that bypasses the traditional industry
gatekeepers entirely. And contextualizing the
year 2010 is so important here. The blog era.
Exactly. This is the peak of the blog era in
hip hop. Twitter and YouTube were becoming the
primary engines for music discovery, replacing
the traditional radio DJ. And Monster was everywhere.
Kanye's Monster was one of the most talked about,
culturally dominant beats of that entire year.
By choosing that specific instrumental to freestyle
over, she essentially inserted herself into the
biggest conversation in music. That is incredibly
smart. She leveraged the Internet to put her
raw talent directly in front of an audience that
was hungry for new lyricists. And the industry
gatekeepers had absolutely no choice but to take
notice of that raw talent. The validation came
fast. Very fast. By 2011, just a year after that
viral video, she is performing at the BET Hip
Hop Awards. And the notes say she was in a cypher
alongside people like DJ Premier, Estelle and
Lecrae. Huge names. So for those catching up
on hip hop terminology, what exactly is a cypher
and why is it such a big deal a cypher is essentially
a freestyle circle it's a gathering of rappers
taking turns showing off their lyricism their
wordplay and their flow over a continuous beat
like a lyrical sparring match exactly it is the
ultimate proving ground in hip -hop there's nowhere
to hide yeah you can't rely on studio magic or
auto -tune it's just you the microphone and the
beat So no pressure. Right. To be invited into
a nationally televised cypher at the BET Awards,
especially with a legendary producer like DJ
Premier involved, is a massive cosign. It's the
culture officially recognizing you as a peer.
And the momentum just keeps building from there.
That same year, she's on the lineup for the Brooklyn
Hip Hop Festival, an event headlined by Q -Tip
from a tribe called Quest. Amazing. By 2012,
she crosses the ocean, performing at the Royal
Arena Festival in Switzerland, sharing the stage
with icons like Ice Cube and Mos Def. The trajectory
is wild. But even as she is rubbing shoulders
with royalty, she keeps her independent hustle
running. While in New York, she created something
called the Boombox Family Hip Hop Movement. The
Boombox Family was all about preserving and progressing
hip hop culture. She eventually dissolved it
in 2014 to pursue other independent business
ventures. But that foundational mindset remained
constant. Building a community. Exactly. Building
a community rather than just building a solo
brand. She operates like an independent organization.
Nothing proves that independent operational model
more than a move she made in 2013. She released
a music video for a song called Flower Child,
and the track actually features Kendrick Lamar.
A huge feature. But the wild part is how it got
made. That entire video shoot was completely
funded by her fans and contributors via a Kickstarter
campaign. Can we just pause and appreciate the
pressure of that? It is a massive risk. If we
connect this to the bigger picture, this is a
defining moment for independent artistry in that
era. Yeah, 2013 was early for that. It was. Asking
your fans for money directly was still relatively
taboo in some music circles back then. Some people
wrongly viewed it as begging. Right, but she
didn't. No, she saw it as community -backed art.
To secure a feature from Kendrick Lamar, who
was rapidly becoming one of the biggest rappers
on the planet at that time, and to execute a
professional music video solely through the financial
backing of your direct fan base, that shatters
the old industry model. It proves that her audience
wasn't just passively streaming her music. They
were financially and emotionally invested in
her success as an independent creator. And that
direct financial support gave her the ultimate
luxury in music, which is complete creative control.
The Holy Grail. Let's trace how that allowed
her sound to evolve. In 2012, she dropped her
first official EP, The Boombox Diaries, Volume
1. That project had production from respected
names like Illmind and Arab Music and guest spots
from Kendrick Lamar and Action Bronson. Solid
lineup. It earned an XL rating from XXL Magazine.
For context, XXL Magazine was the premier publication
for hip -hop culture at the time. Their rating
system was iconic, and getting an XL is essentially
a four out of five stars review. So, critical
acclaim. Absolutely. Yeah. They praised her heavily
as a conscious rapper and noted how strong and
diverse her production choices were. And that
critical acclaim paved the way for her 2014 debut
studio album, The Art of Chill. The notes describe
this era of her music as leaning heavily into
smooth jazz rap and underground hip hop vibes.
She was firmly establishing a very defined found.
It was rooted in that classic sample heavy, thoughtful
hip hop tradition. She was proving she was a
formidable lyricist with a highly refined ear
for laid back, complex beats. Finding her lane.
It was a safe, respected lane that she was dominating.
But here's where it gets really interesting.
Just when people think they have her boxed into
this chill, jazzy, conscious rapper category,
the year 2017 arrives. Oh, yeah. She releases
her second full -length album called Creature,
and she completely shifts the paradigm. Creature
is a profound piece of work. This is the pivot.
She moves away from standard boom bap hip hop
production and dives deep into exploring her
Afro -Burikua identity. Let's break that down.
For clarity, Afro -Burikua refers to people of
Puerto Rican descent with significant African
ancestry. It's a rich cultural identity that
encompasses a specific blend of history, struggle
and art. And she brings that right into the music.
On this album she starts using explicit sonic
references to Afro -Caribbean musical cultures.
The level of detail she goes into is genuinely
stunning. The notes mention collaborations with
Taino artists, and for you listening, the Taino
were the indigenous people of the Caribbean,
including Puerto Rico, before European colonization.
But the album doesn't just feature artists, it
features literal nature. Frogs. Yes, she includes
audio recordings of indigenous coqui frogs alongside
traditional tumba drums, incorporating the sounds
of indigenous frogs into a rap album that is
incredibly unexpected. It's unexpected, but it
is deeply intentional. The coqui frog is a tiny
tree frog native to Puerto Rico, and its unique
call is essentially the unofficial national soundtrack
of the island. It's iconic. It is a powerful
cultural symbol. The purpose behind synthesizing
these specific sounds, the coqui frogs, the heavy
tumba drums, the Taino collaborations, is to
evoke a pre -colonial past. Evoking a world that
existed before. Exactly. It is an intentional
reclaiming of space and history through audio.
She isn't just rapping about her roots. She is
physically building a sonic museum of her ancestry
and placing it inside a modern hip hop format.
That is beautiful. And it makes so much sense
when you look at who she considers her influences.
Throughout her career, critics have compared
her style to legends like MC Lyte, Lauryn Hill,
Ladybug Mecca and Big Pun. Great company to be
in. And she herself has stated she's heavily
influenced by the Wu -Tang Clan, a tribe called
Quest and Slum Village. You can clearly hear
those hip hop influences in her delivery. But
what she achieves on Creature. is this masterful
synthesis. Merging the worlds. She takes that
golden era New York sound, the gritty lyricism
of Wu -Tang, the elevated consciousness of a
tribe called Quest, and she completely fuses
it with her unique Afro -Caribbean heritage.
Right. It creates a landscape that honors both
the architectural roots of hip -hop and the biological
roots of her own bloodline simultaneously. And
what I love is that she doesn't just do this
exploration in a vacuum. She is deeply collaborative.
Even before Creature dropped back in 2016, She
actually formed a supergroup called No Panty
with two established New York rappers, Bodega
Bams and Joel Ortiz. Such a cool project. They
released a mixtape called West Side Highway Story,
produced entirely by the legendary Salaam Raimi.
The mechanics of joining a supergroup like that
are intense. How so? Well, you are stepping into
a booth with Bodega Bams and Joel Ortiz, two
artists known for very gritty, lyrical... underground
New York rap. You have to wrap your heart out
so you don't get outshined on the track. Oh,
for sure. You have to bring your A -game. Holding
her own in that environment over beats from a
producer as iconic as Salam Remy just highlights
her extreme versatility. And her collaborative
network spans all over the map. We're talking
about working with everyone from Static Selecta
and Styles P to Gangstar. She has a track with
the neo -soul singer Jameela Woods, and she even
did a feature with Gangsta Grass. Gangsta Grass
is a perfect example of her boundary pushing.
That's a group that literally blends traditional
bluegrass music with hip -hop. Bluegrass and
hip -hop. Right. By jumping on a track with them,
she proves she absolutely refuses to be boxed
into one specific genre, style, or expectation.
That refusal to be boxed in brings us right into
her current era. In 2021, she released her third
album, Jiggy Mammy. But alongside the music,
the notes highlight a real tangible commitment
to community involvement and advocacy. She really
walks the walk. She does. That same year, she
performed at Miami Beach Pride. A week later,
she was in Cincinnati for the In Her Voice community
music event. She opened for Saw Rock at an event
specifically designed to celebrate the collective
impact of black women in the arts. She consistently
shows up for the communities that intersect with
her identity. She didn't hide her poetry background
to fit in with traditional rappers early on.
Right. She didn't minimize her Afro -Burukua
roots to make her music more universally commercial
later. She leaned into all the complexities of
who she is, and that authenticity is exactly
what built her deeply loyal Kickstarter funding
fan base. So what does this all mean? Why does
Nitti Scott's journey make for such an important
deep dive for you, the listener? It's a great
question. I think it's because her story completely
redefines what it means to be an archivist. Often
we think of history as something dusty, locked
away in a textbook or a museum. But her career
shows us that innovation isn't always about looking
forward to the next futuristic trend. Sometimes
the most groundbreaking thing you can do is reach
back. Reach back and bring it forward. Exactly.
Whether you are creating art, building a business,
or just trying to understand your own family
tree, owning the specific diverse details of
your background gives you a voice that literally
no one else can replicate. That is the core of
her impact. She proves that cultural preservation
doesn't have to be passive. You can actively
weave your history into whatever modern medium
you are working in. It is just a phenomenal trajectory.
We've traced her path from a creative writing
student in Orlando to a viral Internet sensation
bypassing the blog era gatekeepers to a fiercely
independent hip hop artist building her own movements
in Brooklyn. Quite the journey. She has consistently
proven that her pen is elite and her vision is
uncompromising. And as we wrap up this deep dive,
I want to circle back to the production on her
album Creature. Specifically, the intentional
use of the coqui frogs and the tino drums. Okay.
This raises an important question. We are taught
that history is preserved in textbooks or museums.
But when an artist weaves the literal soundscape
of nature, like the call of an indigenous frog
into a modern hip -hop beat to evoke a pre -colonial
past, what if the most visceral way to preserve
a lost ancestry isn't by writing it down, but
by recreating the audio atmosphere for people
to feel in their bones? How much of our own unwritten
history are we inadvertently passing down through
the art, the rhythms, and the sounds we consume
today? That is an incredible thought to leave
you with. Take some time to mull that over next
time you put on your headphones and really listen
to the layers of the music playing. Thank you
so much for joining us on this deep dive. We'll
catch you next time.