Since first hitting the scene in 2018 with his pop culture-soaked musicality, Nur-D has stayed busy. His latest album, “Chunkadelic,” is his tenth full-length project in seven years. Ahead of its release, he stopped by Minnesota Public Radio to perform a few tracks and talk with MPR News arts reporter Jacob Aloi.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Tell me a little about ‘Chunkadelic.’
The whole project spins around this record, which was birthed out of a very mean comment on Reddit.
A while back ago, we finally had a video go semi-viral on Reddit — me and the rest of the friendly neighborhood SpiderBand. We're all in tie dye. We're all having a good time, loving ourselves, enjoying the music we're making. You know, the internet can't have any of that. So this dude, somebody on the internet, typed in the comment section, “This looks like Chunkadelic.”
I was like, honestly, this is the most hilarious thing I've ever seen. It was supposed to be mean, but this is right. This is exactly who I am. But we sat on it for years. And then as we were getting together, making this record, I said to myself, “Chunkadelic”, and DJ Hayes was like, “Should we use that name now?” And it kind of just exploded to what it is now.
DJ Hayes is your collaborator.
He's on half of the record as producer. “Chunkadelic” is homegrown, like we cooked that from the kitchen in our house, like we made it up.
You've described it as one of your most personal projects. What are you exploring in this album?
It is a lot about finding joy in the face of adversity. Like, radical creativity under societal pressure to conform. One of the things that people ask me all the time is, “Oh, hey, like, why haven't you popped off?”
And it's like there is an entire complex, a ton of people who get paid to make sure that only certain types of people get into the positions of musical acceptance. People get to go to the show once they pay their dues and shave off the weird parts of themselves that make them unmarketable. And so for me, this record was kind of just my rejection of that as a concept.
The industry works great for some people, and that's awesome. What I found is like, the more I just hang out with the people that rock with me, the people who just want their music a little bit different, who are cool with me saying the things that I believe in out loud and unapologetically — they're gonna rock with me.
So this record is kind of, like, I don't know — a butterfly moment out of a cocoon. Like, how far do I go into the industry? How far do I just lean into just making art, for art's sake? And the butterfly that came out of it was “Chunkadelic.” It was just like, “I'm gonna do me. I'm gonna be weird. I've decided that that's what I'm gonna do, if that is no longer in vogue, cool.”
It makes me think about the Billy Joel song, “The Entertainer.” There's a line in it that says: “If you're gonna have a hit you gotta make it fit. So they cut it down to 3:05.” You have a similar line in one of your other songs.
“Two Minutes and 30 Seconds,” I remember I had a professor when I was in music business school. I was going for a music business major, and he told me “two minutes and 30 seconds” — after that, you're losing them.
And there is this industry standard of clickbaity, repeatable, “let's get you on a TikTok sound,” and that's all you need. If you can just get a chorus, you're good, you know? And while I like that in certain accesses, because it allows for people to come up with cool, catchy stuff… I miss being rewarded for listening from track one all the way down to track 15, and you can feel the home-cooked meal-ness of a record. And so that's what I'm trying to do.
What were some of the things that you were thinking about, or some artists you might have been listening to, when you were coming up with these tracks?
I really wanted to take the time to not only listen to the funk genre, but also listen to the things that I enjoy… Anderson .Paak was one of the people I was listening to a lot. Because, while not specifically funk, his decision to be unique in his records was really, like, integral to me.
Not only that, but George Clinton — obviously. “Funkadelic” is the main inspiration. “[Not Just] Knee Deep” was one of the first songs for me that I think really gripped me as a musician. And I didn't hear it on a record. I didn't hear it in concert — I heard it on “Good Burger.”
Nur-D performs live in the Current Studio
In the movie “Good Burger,” Kenan (Thompson) and Kel (Mitchell) end up in an insane asylum, and then in order to get out, there's a big dance number. And that dance number was to “Knee Deep, and George Clinton's in it; he's in the scene.
And I just remember thinking to myself as a kid, this is so much fun, like music can be like this. I would rewind that little orange VHS tape over and over and over again, just to wear that scene out. And so that's like, in me, it's always been in me. It's been there since I was a little kid. And so I'm excited to be able to finally let that come out.
I think one thing that maybe gets mistaken for your performance style is that it’s just comedy, but really, you’re having a good time.
Being unapologetically happy about what you're doing is one of the biggest forms of resistance. I personally feel comedy — and laughter and joy — cuts through the fear that often is used to keep people in particular spaces.
If you're laughing, if you're enjoying yourself, if you're poking fun, it requires a lot more work from the opposition to stop you. Because people want to laugh, people want to have a good time. And so what I try to bring to my thing, this “Nur-D” thing is, like — I am entertainment. I'm not a distraction.
I'm the fiddler in the trenches. I am just as much a part of the war and the fight for what we need to do, as you guys are, people who are listening. But my job is to keep you motivated, to keep you having fun, thinking that tomorrow is worth it, and therefore, we will fight. It's comedy. It's fun. I make jokes. I'm gonna make a lot of them, but like, it's because… being sad is what they want. And I don't want to do that anymore. I want to just be happy.
When you say that's what “they” want, what do you mean by that?
I mean the powers that be… not to get too conspiracy theory about it, but there are people out there who have a vested interest in you buying what they're selling. And a lot of the time, they manufacture scarcity, they manufacture hurt so that you will buy the joy that they are selling: the temporary joy that they are selling.
And for me, I'm like, no, let's bring some real joy, joy that comes from within, joy that can't be taken from you. And love for yourself, love for the things that make you happy. If you can operate in that, there is no force — business, political or otherwise — that can stop you. And then getting linked up with people that also agree with you? Now we're a super team. Now we can't be stopped. It's like Power Rangers up in here.
Is there anything else you want to say about the record?
I'd want to say, listen to it a thousand times a day, every day for the rest of your life, to help me pay rent!
What I really want to say about the record is thank you to the Minnesota music community for kind of giving me proof of concept, sticking with me throughout all of these records, all of these projects.
10 projects within the seven-year span that I've been out, to have them all be so well received, is so awesome. I'm very lucky. I understand how blessed I am in that capacity. So with this 10th record, it is really a thank you to the scene.
