Success in music is like a slot machine: unpredictable. UCLA student Nahoa Life is set on pulling the lever.
Life, a first-year music industry student and rapper, released his debut album, “Songs In Anticipation,” during his senior year of high school. The album channeled his anxieties about growing up, pursuing a career and learning to love himself. About a year later on Sept. 17, the Pomona local released his latest single, “On The Verge,” with lyrics reflecting on maturing, making a hobby into a career and leaving home.
“The album both was like a mirror or a camera that captured it, but also a tool that helped me get to where I ended up by the end of the album,” Life said.
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The concept of “Songs In Anticipation” dates back to Life’s junior year of high school, when he said he began feeling the pressure of figuring out what he wanted to do with his future. Life said he found himself conflicted as he questioned whether to choose music, which he loved, or fall back on a more stable career path. Writing and recording “Songs In Anticipation” gave him a healthy outlet to explore those questions and the uncertainty that came along with them, he said.
“When you listen to the album, you can hear my indecisiveness,” Life said. “You can hear anxiety about the future. … It’s not like I need to figure out everything I’m going to do at 17, 16. I realized more and more I truly love music and want to pursue this.”
Life said the album’s storyline reflects how he developed a healthier relationship with the passage of time and felt less pressure to have his future figured out. His relationship with music, however, began long before he started writing about that anxiety.
Life grew up in a creative family, with a poet for a mother and a musician for a father. His father was a member of New Breed, a Christian rap duo he formed with Life’s aunt in Boston. Life said the duo was later recruited to join the Tunnel Rats, a California hip-hop group, in 1997, which prompted them to move across the country to Los Angeles.
Visiting his father in the studio at a young age inspired Life to experiment with music and create something of his own, he said.
“There’s even a video of me holding a cheese stick, freestyling with a bandana on,” said Life. “I loved it, and it was so fun, and it was free and freeing to do music since I was very little.”
Early exposure to music also helped shape the eclectic sound Life produces today. Life’s music features instruments including piano, violin, guitar and flute. Life said he listened to 1970s artists Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin, as well as 1990s and early 2000s hits from Jay-Z and Outkast. In high school, Life began exploring jazz through artists like Hubert Laws and Bill Evans. Now, he said he tries to combine all his influences to make a distinct sound of his own.
Life said he initially planned to attend Berklee College of Music in Boston after spending five weeks there last summer for a music performance intensive. Ultimately, he fell in love with UCLA’s campus and saw LA as a place with more opportunities to pursue musical experiences.
To replicate the collaborative environment he experienced at Berklee, Life joined the Creative Collective Living Learning Community, which brings together UCLA’s musicians, poets, artists and designers in one dorm building.
Matteui Bastillada, a first-year performance student at Berklee and Life’s former roommate at the school’s performance intensive said Life might be soft-spoken, but he certainly has a lot to say through his music.
“The main thing I’ve noticed with him and his music is how much you can feel the actual essence of the song, whether he explained it to you or not,” Bastillada said. “You can kind of get it, and you know, we all really feel it.”
Frankie Manjarrez, a first-year biochemistry student and Life’s roommate, said the two met during their first year of high school after bonding over their similar music taste. While Manjarrez doesn’t create music himself, he said he enjoys watching his friend pursue his creative interests.
“He’s very intentional about timing,” said Manjarrez about Life’s creative process. “Even for ‘On The Verge,’ he was saying, ‘I’m going to release it the day before I move in, because I think that’s the perfect time. It’s right before my life actually does change.’”
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For now, Life said he is focused on sharing his music with a wider audience. He uses his Instagram account – where he’s amassed over 16,000 followers – to promote his music while also posting music commentary. Life consistently posts videos of himself jamming with other musicians, performing his own music and highlighting both up-and-coming and legendary musicians.
“I’m investing so much of my time and pouring so much of my soul and life into these songs that it would be a bummer if no one heard it,” Life said. “If I want it to be heard, that means I need to be seen.”
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