NF The Search

Photographer: Jon Taylor Sweet.

In 2017, Michigan rapper NF made an unexpected mainstream crossover with his chart-topping fourth album, Perception, and its triple-platinum radio hit, "Let You Down." Years later, that single endured on the radio even as he readied a follow-up with his fifth set, The Search. His second consecutive number one, the album featured all the hallmarks of NF's typical sound: lighting-speed bars, dramatic production, and serious subject matter. However, despite the success of his breakthrough -- or, more accurately, because of it -- he's anything but happy or content with the newfound exposure, seething with frustration and anger throughout The Search. One listen to tracks such as "Leave Me Alone" and "-Interlude-" and listeners will get an unambiguous taste of just how the artist born Nathan Feuerstein feels about his post-breakthrough life. Track after track, the sentiment is the same: fame, money, and success can neither banish the demons that plague us nor cure our mental and emotional woes. In both vocal cadence and lyrical content, NF falls somewhere between Eminem and Twenty One Pilots' Tyler Joseph, while channeling the former's rage and the latter's emotive introspection. As such, The Search is a heavy and emotionally exhausting listen, brimming with troubling allusions to suicide and soul-baring pain. When he's not bleeding out on tracks such as "My Stress" and "Hate Myself," he's lashing out on "Leave Me Alone" and "No Excuses." The remaining songs land on either side of that fence and, over the course of 20 tracks, it's clear that NF is struggling, jaded, and pretty miserable. With his star showing no signs of fading at the time of the album's release, it would seem NF's fame could only grow. Assuming the pain on The Search is genuine, that may not be ideal for the reluctant emcee, who is pushing against the limelight as it pulls him ever closer. ~ Neil Z. Yeung