Skip to main content
Open this photo in gallery:

With the release of Bad Habits on March 22, Nav has quietly amassed some three billion global streams and more than 350 million YouTube views, according to his record label.Mr. iozo/Handout

Unlike the hip-hop-superstar Drake, you won’t find the Canadian rapper-producer Nav court-side at Toronto Raptors games. And, unlike the suavely mysterious R&B crooner The Weeknd, you won’t find him on the arm of the American supermodel Bella Hadid. Where you would have found him recently, though, was on the very top of the Billboard 200 albums chart, where he puzzlingly landed with an album (Bad Habits) that pleased few critics and produced no smash-hit singles. Drake, as his self-perpetuated myth goes, famously started at the bottom. Navraj (Nav) Goraya, the Toronto-born son of Punjabi-Canadian factory workers, is beginning at the top.

With the release of Bad Habits on March 22, the artist known as Nav has quietly amassed some three billion global streams and more than 350 million YouTube views, according to his record label. His actual album sales were boosted by the practice of bundling digital downloads with concert tickets and exclusive merchandise, but, dope hoodies aside, 79 million on-demand audio streams made Bad Habits the most listened-to LP during the week of its release.

He’s not for everybody, this guy. He has the droopy look of a wannabe, all strut, tracksuit and trying too hard. Signed to The Weeknd’s XO label (an offshoot imprint of Republic Records), Nav seems to be ripping a page from his reclusive mentor’s “behold the enigma” playbook. Musically, his moody, bass-heavy tunes appeal to the mainstream, but not to the urban music illuminati. A Spin magazine essay, for example, was entitled, “I Don’t Understand Nav.” Not long ago, Nav threatened to quit the business. To skeptical old-school hip-hop heads, Nav’s decision later to unretire has to be seen more as an empty promise than any valiant signal of perseverance.

Still, his sedative, late-hour music has found an audience with the head-nodding stoners and the loft-party set, even if his brag-and-brood tropes are tired and his trap-crooner flow is robotic. As an Indian-Canadian artist in a field dominated by African-Americans, Nav’s ethnicity singles him out and probably earns him rooters in the community. He often refers to himself as a “brown boy,” and has a song and an EP labelled with the Brown Boy brand.

Though Nav’s look is non-threatening, his lyrics suggest otherwise: “I’m not the type of brown boy you take home to your daddy/ I’m the type you call when you wanna smoke a fatty/ I’m the type that got the killers on speed dial.” Speaking to Rolling Stone magazine in 2017, Nav described his hometown suburban Toronto neighbourhood of Rexdale as “pretty rough."

Open this photo in gallery:

Nav's Bad Habits recently landed on the top of the Billboard 200 albums chart.Handout

His enthusiastic use of Auto-Tuning diminishes Nav’s chances of standing out, but, then, the sound of the familiar, even if it is soulless, pitch-correction shenanigans, is just what many listeners are drawn to. His music is throbbing, down-tempo white noise, broken up by the charismatic guest appearances of the Weeknd and American rappers Travis Scott, Quavo, Gunna and Lil Uzi Vert.

Nav is something like the vice-president who un-impresses people all the way to the presidency. Blandly non-offensive, greatly glittered by his affiliations and hanging around in the right videos, he has managed to distinguish himself simply by hovering in the best backgrounds.

Nav first gained notice in 2015, when Drake used a Nav-made beat for Back to Back, a propulsive Grammy-nominated poke at Philadelphia rapper Meek Mill that refers to the consecutive world titles won by the Toronto Blue Jays in the early 1990s. In 2016, on his Soundcloud hit Take Me Simple, Nav rhymed “snitches” as predictably as possible. In the same song, he stirred up controversy by culturally appropriating the N-word in his lyrics.

Also that year, Nav produced and co-wrote Beibs in the Trap, a drug-dusted single from Atlanta rap star Scott. In the song’s video, Nav shared supporting-actor screen time with a silver Lamborghini and several female models dressed inappropriately for most social occasions.

The Weeknd boosted Nav’s exposure in 2017 by taking him along on the road. The hook-up earned the sidekick novice the Rolling Stone feature: “Meet the Toronto rapper-producer opening The Weeknd’s Starboy Tour,” the headline read. Speaking about his in-the-blink-of-an-eye rise and his debt to the Weeknd, Nav claimed “the first time I ever stepped on stage was the O2 Arena in London.” The following month, after his first headline gig (at Toronto’s Mod Club), Nav appeared at Coachella with The Weeknd.

Fame and place, then, by association.

Later in 2017, the collaborative mixtape Perfect Timing with American record producer Metro Boomin yielded the single Call Me. The video version of the track presented Nav in a strip club spouting faux paranoia: “In my old hood, moving like I got a vest on me.” He confidently predicts further accomplishment (“You should place your bets on me"), only to bemoan the very success he clearly seeks: “All this money turned me to a savage/ My life was better when I didn’t have [it].” Disingenuous self-pity and banal self-aggrandizing – the most standard of rap fare.

In 2018, Nav’s debut album Reckless overcame so-so reviews to break at No. 8 on the Billboard 200 chart and earn two Juno nominations. On the track Freshman List, Nav proclaimed himself “rookie of the year” and boasted about real estate, female companionship, expensive Rolls Royce machinery and statement-making accessories. "I just show my chain off to Lil Uzi on the phone,” he rapped, with a mix of swagger and vulnerability that is as original as gin and tonic. “I’m feeling in my zone.”

Despite Nav’s chart success and all-star shout-outs – early endorsements came from the celebrity entrepreneur Kylie Jenner and Drake’s OVO Sound Radio – the rise of the rapper from Rexdale is still greeted with puzzled expressions. After all, his most popular songs (none in the top 20) all feature other artists.

As a no-hit wonder on top of the world, Nav has his detractors. His response? “Half of these dudes are hating on you because they’re in their one-bedroom apartment writing on their MacBook Air,” Nav said in a 2017 interview published in the taste-making Paper magazine. “You can’t take it and make it personal.”

A North American headlining tour later this spring takes Nav to a variety of Filmores and House of Blues clubs. In Canada he plays Vancouver’s PNE Forum (May 26), Toronto’s Rebel (June 10) and Montreal’s M Telus (June 11). These are big rooms, booked for an artist whose status has been goosed by famous affiliations with extra-wide coattails for carrying. “Take me simple,” Nav has advised. Many have.

Live your best. We have a daily Life & Arts newsletter, providing you with our latest stories on health, travel, food and culture. Sign up today.

Follow related authors and topics

Authors and topics you follow will be added to your personal news feed in Following.

Interact with The Globe