The grit of somebody on the streets of Lansdowne who just lived enough to survive can be heard in Nuk. His music has a strong place in personal experience himself where it may have occurred due to late nights, long hours and unwillingness to give up. Lansdowne is not called a hip-hop mecca, but talent and desire are never cared about the geography, they always come out. His newest record- Top Tier, completed at Infiniti Vault Recording Studio, demonstrates that he is not just another face in the crowd-he is coming to carve out a lane that cannot be ignored.

At the first seconds, Top Tier sounds as though it was made to be in motion- head-nods, gym reps, nighttime street laps. It is muscular and punishing beat but it is how Nuk delivers that makes the record punchier. Not wasted breath here. Each bar feels like a shove into the ceiling he has been lamping on. He does not request to be admitted, he rams the door open.

In a music business at best biased towards giant label machines, an independent musicians like Nuk must scratch and claw his own way up. This struggle in the blood to the track. You can hear it because of the space between the words, and the very slight rasp in his voice when he insinuates himself into a line, it is the sound of someone not waiting on a co-sign. It is the voice of a person who bets on himself, who understands very well what it is.