Technically, HAAWWS’ new album didn’t need a parental advisory sticker. That “explicit content” label slapped across the bottom of the Roxbury rapper’s latest cover art is more of a design choice than a warning. After all, the title says it all: This project is NSFW.
Don’t mistake the project’s name for a quick attempt at cheap shock value, though. NSFW — which stands for “not safe for work,” and typically refers to risqué content — isn’t meant to be controversial. It’s just brutally honest about life in 2022.
“NSFW is the perfect description for the state of the world in this current moment,” HAAWWS tells Vanyaland. He doubled down on his statement when the album dropped last month (July 29), tweeting the poignant tagline “It’s not safe, never was.” The seven-track project documents the rugged landscape of HAAWWS’ reality as he reconnects with his artistic vision and sense of self during a period of tumult and uncertainty.
“I was on hiatus for a while / But I’m back yeah / I had lost my cadence for a while / But it’s back yeah,” he raps on “Dali Lama.” By the time HAAWWS’ flow fell back into place for NSFW, it was different — experimental, even, as the track “GOD SENT” demonstrates over the course of seven meandering minutes. HAAWWS even refers to the labyrinth of NSFW as “organized noize,” a hat tip to the Atlanta-based producer group of the same name.
“The last eight months have been indescribable to an extent, hence the losing myself on the album cover,” he elaborates. “This is also a nod to the noise I had been dealing with internally, battling my own thoughts and trying to understand this new world around me. So much noise, I had to organize it; in the process I got NSFW.”
File that under “newfound mental clarity.” Sneak a peek at NSFW below.