“I can’t put all of my talents in the ‘conscious rapper’ box,” says the rising hip-hop artist from D.C. Sure, his lyrics cover politics, love and empowerment, but since his laid-back 2011 tape Kennedy Street Teachings, Nebyu has grown upward and outward.

“I was being me [when I started out], but I was being the ‘safe’ me,” says Nebyu, 24. Now he’s taking on more — including singing, which he does frequently on his 2014 tape Ras Griffin III and melodious singles such as “No Love.” He’s even gone global, taking his act to Abidjan, Ivory Coast, where he performed this summer.

Warning: Explicit lyrics.

Nebyu has been heading in this direction since his primary-school days. The Northwest D.C. native says in fifth grade, he wrote his first song: a braggadocious track called “Can’t Touch Me.” Years later at Benjamin Banneker High School, Nebyu and a childhood friend started exploring music together. Now that friend, who calls himself The Arckitech, crafts many of the woozy instrumentals on Nebyu’s tapes.

The collaboration between The Arckitech and Nebyu led to a bigger concept called the Washington Slizzards. That moniker — a playful take on D.C.’s NBA team name — arose out of a joke between Nebyu and his cousin in 2011. Now “Washington Slizzards” is Nebyu’s hallmark and the name of his creative crew.

Ras flashes his tattoo, a word in black ink on his hand: “slizzatrism.” The term defines the essence of the Washington Slizzards. 

“It’s the art of finessing good energy to work in your favor by way of pure intent, meditation and acknowledging the ancestors,” Nebyu says. He uses “slizzatrism” everywhere — on his Twitter page, his Instagram account and the title of his next release, expected next year.

Nebyu’s most recent song, “Naturale,” emerged in October. Hypnotic and metallic, it meditates on allegiances and the importance of black women’s roles in the world and his life. The song’s producer, Ibrahim Keita, opened the door to Nebyu’s trip to Ivory Coast, where he shared a stage with popular Nigerian artist Wizkid, worked with Keita’s band on a live EP and shot a music video. (The EP and music video are forthcoming.)

Nebyu says he hopes his trip to Africa will be the first of many. Someday, he says, he will make it to Ethiopia, where his family has roots. In the meantime, he’s working on spreading slizzatrism across D.C., where he recently opened for critically acclaimed rapper Vince Staples. Next up: the rest of the U.S.

“We got a story as deep as New Orleans, Oakland, New York, L.A.,” Nebyu says, referring to D.C. artists’ inroads into cities across the country. “It just hasn’t gotten that deep yet as far as telling that story on a national level.”

Ras Nebyu performs at U Street Music Hall Dec. 27. Top photo: Ras Nebyu and the Washington Slizzards in the video “Half Man, Half Slizzard.” 

Ras Nebyu doesn’t have time for misogynistic rap music. He admits that he’s no saint—the rapper sometimes uses the B word—but he says the entrenched sexism in hip-hop has taken a grim toll. “It’s getting out of hand to me,” says the 22-year-old Petworth native. “If we keep going like this, we’re not gonna be here anymore, man. Women sustain life.”

That’s part of the idea behind “Queens,” a highlight from Nebyu’s new mixtape, Ras Griffin III. Featuring vocalist Kailasa, the track co-produced by Black Jesus and The Arckitech takes a stand against sexism and promotes black togetherness—a particularly powerful theme now, in light of the recent tragedy and ongoing uprising in Ferguson, Missouri.

“Queens” also pays homage to one of Nebyu’s favorite artists, Queens-bred rapper Nas, whose landmark album, Illmatic, included a song called “Life’s a Bitch.” “You keep hearing the phrase ‘life’s a bitch,’ ‘life’s a bitch,” Nebyu says. “You’re always gonna get back what you put into it. Maybe if you didn’t address life as a bitch, you’d get more out of it.”

Nebyu sees Ras Griffin III as a document of D.C. hip-hop in 2014, even if it takes listeners a while to catch up to its philosophical rhymes and electronic trap beats. “It might not have its full effect at the moment,” Nebyu says. “But 10, 20, 30 years from now, people will look back and be like, ‘Wow, this is what was happening in D.C. at the time.”

Ras Nebyu performs Aug. 23 at Trillectro.

Producer: i.V.
Stats: Age 22, Gaithersburg, Md.
Notable collaborators: Alex Young, Royal, Lindsay Lowend

Producer i.V. isn’t technically a D.C. guy: Born in Arizona, the 22-year-old spent most of his life in Rockville and Gaithersburg, Maryland—and often indoors. i.V. suffered from asthma that kept him in the house. “I could only stay inside because of the pollen, and because I couldn’t really do a lot of activities, I never played sports,” he says. But he credits his ailment with getting him into hip-hop. “I was always in my basement working on loops and trying to make things sound good when I was 11 or 12,” he says.

For someone who spent a lot of time close to home, i.V.’s production can sound surprisingly otherworldly: He prizes ambience and futurism, crafting his beats by looping and altering everyday sounds and voices to create soundscapes. His sound has attracted a fairly large following on Soundcloud, particularly in the U.K. In this hemisphere, i.V. co-owns Bethesda’s Indigo Studios and frequently collaborates with fellow DMV producers Alex Young, Royal and Lindsay Lowend.

In the long term, the producer has his eye on Top 40. “There’s something about pop music that I just gravitate towards,” he says. “It’s just the music that gets me going… I would love to produce [pop] records.” He’s currently working on some of his own pop productions. Farther down the line, he hopes to break into scoring films.

As far as i.V. is concerned, the asthma that kept him inside was a blessing in disguise. “I’ve always been spiritually in tune with things, and I believe that lives come predestined and we are programmed by a higher power,” he says. Making music “feels kind of like a calling,” he says. “There’s nothing else that I could do.” —Briana Younger

Producer: The Arckitech
Stats: Age 20, Woodridge
Notable collaborators: Ras Nebyu

When D.C. rapper Ras Nebyu plays an early slot at this year’s Trillectro festival, the crowd on RFK’s festival grounds will be nodding their heads to the mellow instrumentals of his most vital in-house producer, The Arckitech. The 20-year-old D.C. native played a crucial role in Nebyu’s breakout mixtape, Babylon’s Most Wanted, contributing five beats of his own and recording and mixing most of the project in his home studio.

“Right now my focus is on projects,” Arckitech says. “I’m really big on albums, helping people put together their projects, and just establishing my sound. Doing more than just making beats and really being involved in the process.”

Arckitech began to explore hip-hop in his freshman year of high school, when he and Nebyu would swap and critique classic hip-hop albums in the halls of D.C.’s Benjamin Banneker High School. It was something of an informal hip-hop book club, in which the two teenagers delved into works almost as old as themselves, like Camp Lo’s Uptown Saturday Night and Raekwon’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx. Those discoveries and conversations shaped both teens’ artistic sensibilities, articulated on Nebyu cuts like “Lion Talk.”

Now, Arckitech is helping to put the finishing touches on Nebyu’s forthcoming album, Ras Griffin III, as well as a project with his older sister, Kamila Gem. He expects both to drop late this summer. “I don’t really have a whole lot coming up as far as major placements,” he says of his immediate future. “I’m just trying to have everything really organic. I’ll have to wait and see if anything else pops up.” (Harold Stallworth)

Photo by Flickr user Brandon Baker used under a Creative Commons license.