If one speaks to the typical Memphis music fan, they’ll likely mention hip-hop as the specialty of the music/production/media/fashion collective known as UNAPOLOGETIC. But while the group founded by IMAKEMADBEATS (aka MAD) over a decade ago has deep roots in hip-hop, there’s a lot more going on there, stylistically speaking. That becomes clearer with every new release by Aaron James, for instance, whose finely wrought acoustic folk-with-beats is practically a modern update of the Laurel Canyon sound of half a century ago. And then there’s the dusky-voiced Nubia Yasin.
“Nina and Amy are very much the roots of the trees that I grow from as a songwriter,” she says, referring to Nina Simone and Amy Winehouse. “Beyond that, when it comes to more contemporary artists, I’m really, really into Mitski, also Bright Eyes, and I love Geese right now.” Such references alone signal just how eclectic the music can be on any given day at UNAPOLOGETIC. Because when Yasin creates songs influenced by such artists, she doesn’t do it in a vacuum. Her favored influences and original compositions resonate with many in the collective, and the process of making songs into tracks draws on several of her colleagues’ talents.
“I do not play an instrument yet — that’s still a goal of mine,” says Yasin. “But as of right now, I produce rudimentary versions of the songs, like with GarageBand on my phone and my computer. Then I write the lyrics on that base, and record those, and then share them with MAD. Of those, we pick what we want to push forward, and then we get everybody in the studio and replay things, re-imagine parts. So it is very, very collaborative.”
Her collaborators reflect the high level of musicianship associated with Outerspace, the home base and studio for UNAPOLOGETIC. And in creating her tracks, Yasin has benefitted from the input and playing of Adam Billings (electric guitar), Aaron James (acoustic and electric guitar), Eillo (guitar, bass, drums, background vocals), Uni’Q (background vocals, vocal producer), and ADUBB (trumpet), not to mention MAD’s work as co-producer in tandem with Yasin herself. “I’m lucky that I’m surrounded by incredible musicians,” she says.
Yet even with this stellar team bringing her songs to life, it’s not always a sure thing that the tracks will strike Yasin as appropriate. Though she’s been with the collective since 2019, her debut album, Slightly Sacred, to be released later this year, has really only taken shape since 2024, with the title track dropping as a single last year and another, “He’s Got the Whole Wide World,” appearing just last month.
That’s partly because Yasin, who’d previously invested her time largely in written and spoken-word poetry, was willing to wait until she found a musical identity that seemed to fit. “We’d cycle through genres,” she says of working with MAD, “because I’m very postmodernist in my approach. Not that much is sacred beyond the story and the words, so it really could have been anything. It was just about what feels true, and we had to try a bunch of songs and approaches to find what felt true. And MAD really let me explore. He never steered me in a specific direction, and never told me, ‘Nah, that don’t work.’”
With that sense of exploration, Yasin was able to craft the perfect melding of music, melody, and lyrics. “I will collect words, like I’ll collect segments of songs or lines, and I’ll put them in my notes app or in my journal, and then when I’m feeling like a song wants to come out, I will start working on the music. I’ll let the music tell me which song statement it’s feeling compatible with, and then I will start writing.”
Now, after shaping the material for two years, a strikingly coherent album is poised to emerge. “The album as a whole has unfurled into this story about power,” she says. “It’s dissecting the abuse of power, specifically when it comes to gender power dynamics. I love my family, but as a girl child, I grew up in a very misogynistic household. So I’m learning a lot of things as I’m growing up, and from track one to track 10 is literally a full sentence about how I have transitioned in my understanding of power and what it should look like, what it can look like. I have felt restricted by it, but at other times I’ve felt like the wielder of it. And then ultimately it explores where I want to end up, which is kind of in surrender to it, or surrender to a greater power in general.”
As a press release accompanying her latest single states, the album is “her complete thesis on power. If the entire project is a thesis, then ‘He’s Got the Whole Wide World,’ with its deceptively warm instrumentation and sarcastic lyrical commentary on gendered power struggles, serves as a chapter on patriarchy and the institution of marriage. In the song’s opening lines, with a voice that seems to smirk, Yasin croons ‘I’ve been moving too long now, it’s time for a change/And I’ll be his perty birdy if he builds me a cage.’”
What’s harder to convey is the sheer upbeat joy of the music itself, which may well become one of this year’s great summer songs. As Yasin puts it, “It’s a commentary on a transactional relationship and the institution of marriage. Like the idea that women are encouraged, or not just encouraged, but expected to sacrifice certain freedoms in exchange for resources from a man, by way of becoming a wife. It’s just me grappling with that idea, while wrapping it in a really fun-sounding song.”
Expect more such paradoxes from the ever-venturesome Yasin, as the full ambitions of Slightly Sacred are fully revealed later this year. In the meantime, you can hear the artist herself unpack the themes woven therein in real time. “Every Sunday at 9 p.m. Central Time,” she says, “I’m doing the Slightly Sacred stream, where I’m talking through all the concepts of the songs. It’s 10 weeks for all 10 tracks, and I have six more weeks to go.”
Visit nubiayasin.com for details.
