J. NOLAN | Chaos Theory |

By David D. Robbins Jr. | Their Bated Breath
J. Nolan “Chaos Theory” (2011)
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Jamar Nolan is one of the best rappers you’ve never heard. His latest record, “Chaos Theory”, is built on a quaint concept: rap with meaning. Call him the king of flow or the revival of old-school. Call his music a beautiful hybrid. Maybe Nolan himself says it best in his track, “Oblivion”: “It’s new flavor, with an old feel.” He uses a musical style that used to belong to a segment of conscious rap, back in the day when every house party was blasting A Tribe Called Quest, Basehead, The Roots, Mos Def, and Common. Once upon a time there was a large, but somewhat underground segment of socially aware rap that did more than spit about being a badass, holding Benjamins, and building the fattest blunts. It’s not that Nolan doesn’t talk about some of that stuff too. He does. He drops lines about famous athletes, surviving the streets, critiques of the industry, and boasts about his skills. At times, he even sounds like a cool hybrid of a lot of big label artists we know already, like Wu Tang or Kanye. But Nolan is his own man. This isn’t soft rap. Nolan can be angry and disillusioned too. He calls out the entire rap game just as many times as he tips his cap to his musical heroes. But more importantly, he’s analyzing the world and his place in it — one hypnotic sprawling verse at a time.

Nolan’s world is nuanced, complex, puzzling and entropic. He raps about it in sheer force. On one track he talks about how artists can get so confused “up in the rap game” they forget there’s “brothas on the corner sellin’ coke, cocaine.” He seems to care about things other rappers don’t. And he’s honest about it. In fact, it looks like he doesn’t even use a moniker. Talk about keepin’ it real. Nolan isn’t trying to dazzle with gimmicks. He’s out to blow your mind. He’s wants to be the antithesis to every notion you have about defining rap, hip-hop, black men, culture, education, street life, good and bad. He’s trying to break all your assumptions and stereotypes. He writes tracks that touch on a variety of topics: economic recession, getting money, heartbreak, student loans, the ticking-clock of opportunity, comparisons to Lupe, fame, validation, the hard work of making music, and holding firm to integrity in a world trying to drain every ounce of it. His arsenal is a serious rhythmic feel for 80s college rap (listen to “Move On” below) and an almost schizophrenic flow and flair for association and wordplay. It’s the act of moving hip-hop forward by looking backward.

The album’s opening salvo, “Conquer & Destroy”, with its Van Halen fanfare, lays down the introduction like a Jay-Z record. But it’s Nolan’s flow that sets him apart. The song is pure bravado, and it’s also Nolan’s way of defining himself from his previous rap incarnations — whatever they may be. At the end of the song he says this record is a documentation of who he is now. It’s his early statement about “Chaos Theory”, the worlds in his mind and the world at large. But if “Conquer & Destroy” is the primer, then the second track, “Greener Pastures”, is the hook that will pull you into his 18-song (plus one hidden track) record. It begins with a soft jazz-piano line and trumpet, before Nolan charges through a litany of thoughts and ideas that range from a mother’s actions after her son is killed in a drive-by, to racism and writing. He name-checks the roots of his style, mentioning the group The Roots and Tribe’s album, “Midnight Marauders”. He drops a choral ode to his parents. He gives a shout-out to his future fans, singing, “If you’re willing to follow / I’m ready to take it forward.”

The ideas burst forward like a dam-breaking loose. The pace is furious. The song is organized misrule, like the album in microcosm. As soon as you hear a line you like, the next one begins, like bud upon blossoming bud. And you’ve got to love a rapper who takes notice of social realities like this: “Still dealing with racists / And nowadays it’s somethin’ worse / ‘Cuz even black women see me and they cuff they purse / Like I’m a threat / Though I never wrecked a set.” The title track makes great use of a soulful sample, and finds Nolan dropping lines with the type of energy you hear in freestyle. He comes at listeners from so many angles, with verses that swerve, pivot and move like an Allen Iverson triple crossover circa 2005. Nolan even takes aim at conventional notions of brotha-hood: “I was brought upon knowledge / Reading rainbows / See the brain grow / I don’t wanna see your chain glow / We don’t think the same bro / Where your mind at? / You the type to only have a good time trippin’ off a cognac / Floatin’ through your life like a kayak / Take away the pain, and it remains / Where your friends died at.” However, it’s not all seriousness. There’s a clever line in “Oblivion” about how his music is so underground he’s “pirate-ing” his own stuff. And his braggadocio is marvelous, like this verse in “Whatever Works”: “Stronger than cheap cologne on your grandfather / I slam harder than Onyx on Delphonic, with the manslaughter …”

Or how about this line in “In The Wind”? about opportunities lost and the search to find them again: “Daily reminda / Coulda had a deal with some well known names in the game, / But today I can’t find ’em / Friends turn backs for unnecessarily drama / Tryin’ to muscle me on like a too-small condom / Gotta be kiddin’ / God, how we livin’/ I’m a prodigy honestly / But I’m poverty stricken / My only ride is the rhythm / I know my clock has been tickin’ …”

Nolan’s musical style incorporates jazz, soul and stylish arrangements into something unique despite his obvious connection to the music of the past. But what often separates good rappers from great ones, in a genre that holds flow and lyrical creativity at a premium, is a singular, definable voice. It’s usually one or two qualities a rapper has, but it’s difficult to quanitfy. But you know it when you hear it. Real fans can smell a weak verse or style from a mile away, just as easily as they can spot the real deal Holyfield. You can listen to Snoop Dogg on “Tha Shiznit”, hitting full stride on that lengthy third verse, just gliding over his lyrics with that cool slacker-high style: “Listen to me, ‘cuz I do you like you wanna be done /Snoop Doggy Dogg on this three, two, one, / Umm / Dum, diddy-dum / Here I come / With this gat and the guitar I strum” — and you know it’s straight-up mastery. Or listen to ‘Lil Wayne on “Dr. Carter” strutting his uniquely raspy way into a priceless line, “To paid to freestyle / To paid to freestyle / Had to say it twice, swagger so nice.” No one but Weezy can amble on like he does, and stumble into a diamond like that. Or take Kanye — his gift isn’t his rapping ability or his flow. It’s his high level of musical creativity that can’t be mistaken for anyone else. List them all if you want. What about Ice Cube’s drawling delivery on “Today Was a Good Day”, and that verse where he laughingly exaggerates just how good he feels, with this spark of hyperbolic ingenuity, “Even saw the light on the Goodyear Blimp / It read Ice-Cube’s a pimp”? Listen to Slick Rick’s off-kilter English delivery, rhyming “there were cops all ova” with “stolen Nova” on 1988’s “Children’s Story” and there’s no mistaking who it is.

In the case of Nolan, it’s a relentless flow that can only be compared in smoothness to Q-Tip on a track like “1nce Again” off 1996’s “Beats, Rhymes and Life.” The true field of chaos theory is the application of a range of complex disciplines and how one thing effects another. It’s a symbiosis of sorts, just like all of the images, thoughts, scenarios, wordplays, and social constructs that people “Chaos Theory”. Nolan is making method of all that madness — and this is just the beginning. Note: All lyrics are unofficial. Artwork above is a manipulation of the artist’s photo by David D. Robbins Jr.
J. Nolan “In the Wind”