You wouldn’t think of Ottawa, the sleepy government town that serves as the capital of Canada, as being a capable breeding ground for someone like Nilton de Menezes. Migrating from Angola in 2002 when he was 10 years old, Nilton traded in his life of rumba on the beaches of Brazil for one of diligent studiousness at Canterbury High School in the southern part of Ottawa, where he’d spend portions of his class time writing raps, essentially imitating what he had heard in Jay Z and Dipset songs at that time. He practiced music at Carleton University when he played in a band with classmates, but it wasn’t until they each went their separate ways that Nilton found a new outlet for his musicality. “Before that, rap was always just a hobby for me. But when the band separated and I taught myself how to make beats, I decided to really commit to it. That’s when I became N.D.M.A.”He picked this stage name after his own initials “plus Artist,” and made it purposefully similar to the notorious substance in order to reflect his music’s “drug-like addiction”. The songs N.D.M.A. makes can be classified as rap, but the production fuses together the sort of influences that one inherits from splitting their life in two locations, millions of kilometers apart. In addition to the hip-hop sampling that was prevalent in the early aughts thanks to producers like Just Blaze and Kanye West, there’s also traces of samba and bossa nova peppered into Nilton’s songs. His musical identity embodies the roots of his upbringing in Angola and pays tribute to them in a way that doesn’t feel forced. “Portuguese people need to dance, they need to hear something in the music that makes them want to move their feet,” explains N.D.M.A.. “I’ve put a lot of that spirit into my music, while also trying to tell a story with my songwriting.”When asked what he hopes to accomplish with this project, Nilton sees the big picture. “I want to catch fans internationally with my music. I want it to be used as a tool to help the community and give chances to people who may not normally be granted them. I want to be musical and incorporate art, I want it to be bigger than just a remix, a song, or an album. I want to create a theatre show one day, there’s really no limit to what I hope to accomplish. Panache is just the start of everything.”Slava Pastuk is a writer living in Toronto - @SlavaP---City Fidelia wants to have a conversationJD Era needs to get out of the kitchenIs Toronto's main export now R&B?
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With an immaculate sense of style that’s recognizable from afar thanks to a streak of blonde hair underneath such unique headgear options as panamas to fedoras, N.D.M.A. believes in the holistic nature of artistic mediums, a quality that has helped propel him forward as a recognizable and admirable personality in Ottawa. This is reflective in his output as a producer, mixing such works as London Grammar’s “Wasting My Young Years” and incorporating a deep shattering synth, housed by upbeat Portuguese rhythms that places you in the middle of the dance floor of a utopian paradise. In his own artistic endeavours, N.D.M.A. challenges himself as a rapper to equate the mastery of his producing, in the works of his upcoming EP Panache, due June 17th.
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