Natas

Natas carved out new ground in the 1990s alongside Esham’s extensive solo catalog from the same period, forging a bleak strain of hardcore rap defined by lurid themes and a metallic ferocity. Drawing heavily from the Niggaz4life-era NWA blueprint, the Detroit, MI trio of Esham, Mastamind, and TNT delivered an abrasive 1992 debut, Life After Death, whose seething intensity restricted its reach to a narrow cult following drawn to the group’s chaotic outlook and self-described “acid rap.” The record explored the most unsettling subjects conceivable, mapping the bleakest pockets of their ravaged city’s most blighted neighborhoods in pursuit of maximum hardness. Esham handled production duties himself, crafting raw beats and deploying rock samples to sharpen the album’s edge. Later releases showed the members refining both their flows and beats as they aged, gradually shedding exploitative impulses. By the close of the decade this growth yielded a fresh realization of their founding vision, fully realized on WWW.Com (Wicket World Wide).

Prior to Natas, Esham had already launched a solo career, issuing Boomin’ Words From Hell at the tail end of the 1980s along with several EPs. While attending Osborne High School in Detroit he met Mastamind during tenth grade; after hearing a three-song demo from the younger rapper, Esham recruited him and longtime friend TNT to form a group. They reversed the spelling of Satan to create the name Natas, a gesture reflecting their teenage embrace of disorder and malevolence. The trio’s first project, Life After Death, appeared in 1992 on Esham’s Reel Life Productions imprint. Two years later came Blaz4me, comparably twisted and unsettling, followed in 1995 by the darker Doubelievengod, which marked artistic and ideological progress.

The 1997 release Multikillionaire: The Devil’s Contract signaled a clear shift, paralleled by Esham’s Bruce Wayne: Gotham City 1987 that same year. Together the projects expanded Natas’ reach toward conceptual territory while discarding earlier exploitative traits. The group returned in 1999 with WWW.Com (Wicket World Wide), redefining their acronym as “nation ahead of time and space” in an effort to recast their public image. The album corrected shortcomings of Multikillionaire and offered a more seasoned expression of their aims; replacing samples with live instrumentation, its production fused rock energy with rap sensibility and earned underground praise. After its success, Esham and Mastamind each stepped back to focus on solo work as Detroit’s rap scene rapidly matured into a major center for emerging talent.