NODIS
"All About Cake"
Sidon Faris, better known as Nodis or the YOUNG CRUSH LORD is a rapper from the DMV (DC, Maryland, Virginia) who specializes in jocular melodic bars that revolve around heartache, the college party scene, and past of overcoming drugs. He began his career at the age of 11 and drew inspiration from musicians such as Pharrell and Wiz Khalifa. Nodis’ artistic journey has begun to take off as songs such as “Offdrugs” and “Long Day” have reached a massive audience of over a million plays each. “All About Cake” is Nodis’ most recent viral hit, raking in over 7 million videos made on tik tok with “Nodis "All About Cake" (feat. KyleYouMadeThat)”.
Nodis is currently signed through Beathouse / Pulse.
Nodis and I sat down on a phone call to discuss his quarantine adventures and inspirations for his creative process.
DW: So real quick, how’s quarantine?
Nodis: My first quarantine moment was when I fucked this girl who had crutches and her leg was broken.. So that was my start of quarantine. That was just the beginning but yeah that shit was lit.
DW: So I’m guessing there’s a lot more to your quarantine if that was just the beginning?
Nodis: Bet. Yeah so like I said, I started off fucking the girl with the broken leg and then I reconnected with my ex-girlfriend from Virginia and she flew out here (LA) for a weekend and we haven’t talked since then because she got mad I made a post on my Instagram about Drake DM’ing her. So she got mad about that because she thought I fucked up her chances with Drake. I have so many different versions of a song and we’ll narrow it down because I’m a perfectionist with this shit. So it’s good to see the whole tracklist and listen to the whole project and be like “dude, I’m so excited for this!”, ya know?
DW: So earlier, you mentioned you were from Virginia?
Nodis: Yeah I grew up in Virginia and I lived in DC for like five years too
DW: Like the DMV area?
Nodis: Exactly
DW: How has that affected your journey being from the DMV? Like how has that affected your music and how you grew as a person?
Nodis: Think about it this way, I’m not from LA, I’m not from Atlanta, so there’s not a lot of linking up in Virginia. I had to link with the most talented people in my area and people that had a similar vision as me. You also have artists like Pharrell, Timbaland, Chris Brown, Trey Songz, Missy Elliot, Pusha T, you know the list can go on so it’s like “you got big shoes to fill”. But there just isn’t really a music industry there so that’s why I got the fuck out and came to LA.
DW: I feel it, I feel it. You also started hella young, right? Around the age of 12?
Nodis: So long story short, I used to get high, I started smoking weed at around 11-12 and I grew up skateboarding so I always hung out with older kids. So my older friends would come over and they would set up an in-house studio with a mic and they would rap over it. So I was like “shit let me try it” and then I was like “damn, I’m better than them! I gotta keep doing this”. But yeah I started writing music when I was 12-13.
DW: When did you realize that music was the move? When was the moment that you knew you wanted to take music as a career?
Nodis: I think I always knew I wanted to do it but it was just that I was battling vices. As my love for music grew, so did my love for- I don’t know if love is the word but I was doing more and more drugs and I was experimenting with more drugs. I think that really held me back from pursuing my dream because I had such a heavy drug use. Bro, I did everything except for meth, crack, and heroin.
DW: Everything but the HARD hard shit
Nodis: Exactly. When you’re fighting all that- Not fighting it because I was having fun too but it’s difficult to take music seriously. So I would say after I got arrested and put on probation, that’s when everything shifted. I had to get a real job at AT&T and I was like “Fuck this, I don’t want to do this for another fucking day in my life”. So that pushed me to move to LA and take everything a little more seriously.
DW: Do you think the drugs influenced your music or your creative process?
Nodis: Nah, they don’t. It just takes away from [the music], honestly. I never recorded music off drugs. I remember one time I was off so many xans and I went to go try to record a song, and my producer and I still talk about it to this day, but I tried to record the song and I couldn’t remember the lyrics. I was like “FUCK!” and we had to cancel the session. I never write music off drugs, I would hate to perform off drugs and it does nothing in a positive way for me in my life.
DW: I respect that. How would you describe your music? If someone wanted to know about you, know about Nodis and know about your project. How would you describe that to them?
Nodis: First off, I write about my real life. I think a lot of artists put up a facade and you know, I don’t have everything figured out. I’m learning day by day, I’m moving day by day, and I really tell my story. I don’t have a mansion with Lamborghinis and Ferraris. But I can paint a picture for young college kids or young high school kids or kid’s in their early twenty’s about what life really fucking is. And I don’t like singing too much, I rap but I put pop melodies in my shit, you know, just to make it a little more catchy.
DW: I definitely see that in your music. So, I want to talk about a couple of your tracks, specifically your lead single “I LOVE YOU BUT FUCK YOU”, what was your thought process and inspiration for the title?
Nodis: It was my first session being thrown in with an established producer in LA (Avedon) who produces for Trippie Redd, Chris Brown, etc and my first session being managed by Tiffany Kumar so I’m like “I gotta make a fucking banger!”. We went into the studio and I laid it all out on the line; I was going through shit with my ex and I really put it on the pad. When I made that song I really had that moment, that punching the sky moment, I couldn’t be more proud of this song. When you make something like that, drugs can’t give you that feeling, girls can’t give you that feeling, bro it’s better than sex. Avedon and Shawn Wasabi worked on that track but Avedon pretty much executive produced the project.
DW: I love the story and energy behind that especially since it’s the leading track! I want to talk about “OFF DRUGS” next, this is a collaborative track, so how was that creative process? I’m assuming it was recorded in LA?
Nodis: Nah it was recorded in a room that was the size of a closet in DC.
DW: Tell me about that, what was it like making that record?
Nodis: I went over to my engineer’s house, Sergio Cortez, and I found the samples on splice. I remember being drunk in the small room and freestyling to it. Bro, I went to college for a week, dropped out, and then I was doing drugs so much. I see everyone at these colleges playing “OFF DRUGS” in frats and sororities sending me videos of themselves 30 deep, 40 deep going crazy to “OFF DRUGS” and I never got that experience in college so I think it’s lit because of what it does for people, ya know?
DW: Aye if you’re ever in Santa Cruz, you should pull up to rage to “OFF DRUGS” at UCSC with us, it’ll be lit!
Nodis: That’s super fire, let’s do it!
DW: What are some artists that you believe would complement your sound?
Nodis: I just met Wiz [Khalifa] last night, Wiz is a huge inspiration to my music growing up, Wiz and I would make a super hard song. I think me and Jack Harlow would make a fire song. Dream collaboration, definitely Post Malone, I fuck with Dominic Fike, and this could be dead or alive, right?
DW: Dead or alive
Nodis: Juice WRLD, he’s one of the greatest artists, period; RIP, I love Juice WRLD’s music.
