Over the past decade,
the Virginia-based beatmaker has made hundreds of classic beats for both newcomers and industry legends. And, judging from his future plans, he’s just getting started.

To put it bluntly, Nottz Raw has one hell of a catalog. In a little over a decade the low key Norfolk, Virginia, native has managed to supply backdrops for hip-hop’s most notable names from Busta Rhymes and Method Man to Scarface and Notorious B.I.G. Although a career in production seemed ordained (his father and brothers all dabbled in beat making), Nottz got involved with hip-hop by rapping in lunchrooms and at school talent shows. His flirtation with beats only began because he needed something to rhyme over, so his parents copped him a little Yamaha keyboard with seven seconds of sample time. Every time he used that joint it would overdub whatever he did, but that didn’t discourage the young novice from breaking it out at his first contest where some original beats and borrowed rhymes stole the show.

“Back in elementary school when I had that seven second sampler they had this talent show,” Nottz remembers. “I wrote down the whole rhyme of Grand Daddy I.U.’s ‘Something New’ and did that shit at the talent show. I won and then I did that same rhyme again a couple days later in the lunchroom when this dude Roy wanted to battle me. I lit his ass up with that rhyme.”

After winning the competition and taking out a few more cats with the help of Greg Nice’s verse from “No Delayin’,” the kids thought Nottz was the king of MCing. He continued rhyming, this time penning his own scripts, and making beats borrowing heavily from his dad’s record collection. His pops was a DJ back in the day so there was always mad vinyl around the house. That’s where Nottz attributes his ear for music. Inspiration came in the forms of gospel, rock, country, and even old movies. It didn’t matter if the rhythms were from Young Frankenstein, The Mack, Cooley High, Foxxy Brown, or Dolemite, they just had to be funky. With that education in sound, Nottz soon outgrew his first machine and started teaching himself how to use some real equipment.

“My man D got that SP1200 and I went ape shit on that,” claims the beatsmith. “Then one of my homeboys had an EPS 16 Plus and I was fucking around on that for a minute, and then one of my boys bought me a keyboard [ASR-10] and I’ve been doing joints ever since. When my momma said that sounds good, that’s when I got that this is what I’m gonna do.”

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