I had never so much as heard of Nana prior to checking this video, but he’s been around for awhile: back in 2020, DJ Booth was proclaiming him “Los Angeles’ Next Great Storyteller.” (High praise considering that was the same year that D Smoke dropped Black Habits.) Based entirely on this track, I am both converted & inclined to agree. The terse, packed storytelling of his sixteen here is something special.
That verse is complimented by an equally superb sermon from Kota the Friend over an absolutely perfect beat. It is weirdly difficult to confirm who produced this so I’m assuming it was Kota himself; hardly a stretch considering how choice his catalog has been from the start. That upright sample is gold and that drum pocket is a killer counterpoint. The few extra touches are spare but high impact.
The leap from Nana’s personal testimony to Kota’s 9/11 memorial pep talk of a verse seems jarring for a second, but the two performances are a jigsaw fit. The hook here is no afterthought, and both artists unpack a dozen shades of meaning from it. Decades past the point where screaming into a camera about cocaine was remotely dangerous or shocking, this kind of low-key but uncompromising telepathy is cutting edge. You get it or you never will.
The video is equal to the song, lush & compelling. Big ups to Franco Colon and James Merrick for stitching a couple simple shoots into something downright hypnotic. This looks as good as anything else the major label machine has given us so far this year. Then again, I’m not altogether clear on whether Nana is still under the munificent wings of Sony Music. His artist website is still pushing his 2022 project From the District to the World.
“Always Us” is being pushed as a one-off single, no said date for the next LP just yet. Nana has been on a streak of those lately. His last round was, fittingly, a collab with D Smoke: “Caged Bear” is another great damn track (with a brilliant video treatment from James Merrick again).
If there’s a whole project coming with joints this cold, I am sold American. Everyone involved here is dumb talented and I can put this on repeat without getting bored. This right here is one of my best finds of 2026. So far! Five Dickies.
