Just over a year ago, hip hop enthusiast Andreas Nesteby Obrenovic got his own Instagram. Now he's a rapper with Tommy Tee on the beat. Say hello to Unge Obi.
/ 22/10/2021 / Kristian DugstadWhat began with short humorous videos that teased the contrast between Obrenovic's love of rap and his ordinary life resulted in a collaboration with Tommy Tee and a real EP in record time.
You'll probably soon get tired of telling the story of the path from insta sketches to release with the godfather of all Norwegian hip hop, Tommy Tee. But we still have to ask, how did Andreas Nesteby Obrenovic, environmental therapist in his early 30s, to Young Obi?
It happened a bit overnight. I had an old Nokia phone for several years before I finally had to give in to pressure from friends to get a smartphone and social media. Plus I felt quite lonely with the Nokia phone actually. There is extremely little activity on it. So then it was the iPhone!
That was actually the idea behind my Instagram profile from the start. I didn't want to document my life day by day, like so many people do, which results in an awful lot of pictures and videos of food for example. Snort. I wanted to try to reflect my personality through short video clips. At that time, I knew all my followers personally, so like 120 or something. It was never a goal to "go viral", I posted things to fuck with friends and family. Everyone around me knows that rap is a big part of me, so there had to be a video about that too.
Then I wrote a rap about a food processor and baking. The reason for that was that I had heard Pop Smoke – Dior (rest in peace) on repeat for a few weeks and thought, hm. He's really just rapping about a brand. It's almost like an advertisement. Is it legit to rap about any object as long as it's expensive? If clothes are okay, why not food processors? So then a little video clip was made about it.
A friend of mine, who is also a rapper, posted it on his story which was picked up by Marius in YLTV. So it was probably through their channel that Tommy saw it. He wrote to me in DM and asked if I had any music he could play on the radio, which I was miles away from. I had zero experience with the studio and didn't have much lyrics I was happy with either. But that gave me a little boost. So in the following weeks I wrote until it was all over and posted a few more raps. After two or three videos, Tommy just invited me to the studio and said we had to do something together.
I thought we were just going to make one song. But Tommy said it had to be a project, which I'm really glad he pushed me on. I'm a big fan of the album format or EP projects, and I listen to complete projects more than hits and singles.
I was also contacted by producer and rapper JNS, which resulted in the song Slick Rick on his album Pandemivinter.
In short, the concept of your videos on Instagram is that you are talking to a mentor version of yourself, who is going to teach you how to be a rapper, with all that that entails. Regardless of what happened, you must have had a huge creative outlet. Where do you get your ideas from?
Well, that particular concept was just something that came very naturally. I've tried to write some really hard bars, which I love. But I've felt like I can't deliver it with as much credibility as others. So I'd rather try to let my insecurities shine through a little.
The mentor (behind the camera) and I (in front of the camera) in the videos are meant to illuminate my inner dialogue. A bit like a devil and an angel on each shoulder. He will try to toughen me up and get me ready for the masculine rap life, while in front of the camera he will appear a bit naive and unsure about the whole process. From the mentor's side, the videos became a kind of list of what is important to include in a rap song. Or how a rapper traditionally should/should appear.
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In general, I've always been good at entertaining myself. I love learning new things, I'm quite curious. I don't have a huge creative outlet, but I'm not the first to show off the things I like to do.
It can be an Achilles heel for satire that it doesn't maintain the same high quality as what it is mocking. This is not a trap you have fallen into. You have deep insight into the genre, a razor-sharp pen and good technical skills. How important was it to you that your music actually maintained a high quality when you started making the videos?
Thanks! It means a lot. It was never a goal to mess with the genre itself. It's my genre. I've listened to rap pretty much 24/7 for over 20 years. There are many different approaches to liking rap. Mine has always been the lyrical aspect, especially rhymes and metaphors. I'm really into that. I love rap that manages to pack a lot of different meanings and rhymes into the same sentence. With that approach, I can listen to an album for a whole year and still discover new things. I don't know anyone who's as interested in it as I am, so I usually watch reaction videos on YouTube where people react to songs I listen to a lot to see if they catch the same bars as me. Then I kind of feel like we share that moment in the song. Haha, that sounded a little sad.
So that was really important. I wanted people in the rap industry to hear that I've tried to put in some work and not just write it off as a bad parody. Now, not everyone in the industry has the same approach to lyrics as I do, but I know that lyrics are still pretty strong in hip hop, and that they've actually had a real revival in recent years.
With the obvious flair you have, it becomes natural to ask, why haven't you done this sooner?
I think I felt that it wasn't good enough. I wrote a little rap already in middle school, when my friend Mats became a rapper in the group Bankmenn. I think that group was really cool, especially Mats, Lars Rubix and Phil T Rich aka Arif. I was more of a shy football nerd in middle school and really looked up to the self-confidence those guys had. What I wrote at the time was really bad. I thought that I either had to be like them to rap or I had to find something else to write. This resulted in me stumbling into the Slam poetry community in Oslo a few years later. I kept at it for a few years before I got a little tired of the serious format and I felt like I didn't quite fit in with the environment. So I started playing around with bars a little again. But looking back now, I wish I had started earlier. Maybe that's why Unge Obi became a rap name too, this is something the young Obi should have done.
The fact that you have Tommy Tee may make the question redundant, but do you feel that Norwegian hip hop takes you seriously? Is there self-irony in the environment?
There is a lot! And a lot more humor than you think, both internationally and here in Norway. Kjartan Lauritzen and B-Boy Myhre for example, lots of humor and self-irony. I have also gotten to know Mae, who has shown me that there can be a lot of humor in the delivery itself. There he is a champ! A true legend.
I may have just chosen to let uncertainty and self-irony shine through a little more clearly. Plus, I may be more ironic about the genre itself.
I definitely feel like I'm being taken seriously. I'm completely new and have a lot to learn, but I feel like I've come in with a great starting point. Both Tommy and I were a little skeptical at the beginning about how it would be received. But it's only been positive, both from the community and other strangers, lots of DMs. Hehehe. Lots of flames in the comments, people are pyromaniacs. There are probably also many who think it's dumb, but at least they haven't made a sound yet.
While you joke about money, women, beefs and MC name trends, there is a good dose of self-irony on your part as well. Where do you get your inspiration when writing lyrics?
Thematically, I get inspiration from everywhere. My job as a physiotherapist/environmental therapist/care assistant, normal everyday life, personal relationships, popular culture, books, etc. I also get a good dose of inspiration from other rappers. Especially in terms of technique, how others build a verse. I feel like I have a lot to learn there. I try to challenge myself to write new types of rhyme schemes, while also trying to let go of it a little. I don't want to be a lyrical miracle. That would be a bit overkill. Tommy taught me the value of not poking too much into the lyrics afterwards. But to trust that you have a strong enough foundation to be happy with what you come up with.
There's so much that can be turned into lyrics. You don't have to rap about the same thing as everyone else just because it's trendy. There's a record amount of rap circulating in Norway these days, but there's still a lot that hasn't been put into words.
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Do you think that by putting your feelings into words, you also appeal to us less tough types, who, like you, live common life, and who likes, but perhaps can't relate to, the hip hop universe?
Both. Part of the reason I listen to rap is that I get a break from my A4 life. I feel like a machine when I put on Benny The Butcher or Freddie Gibbs at the gym, I don't necessarily relate to drug dealing and murder. Then I just want to feel strong and cool. So maybe it's situational. But it would have been cool to function as a kind of link between A4 life and trap life. Haha.
I've had a goal since high school to get my friend Christian to start listening to rap. A completely normal guy, mostly just likes guitar and nice vocals. So it's a bit in the back of my mind that I want guys like him to be able to like it too. I'm probably not his favorite artist but I think he listens to me.
Can you imagine writing songs where humor isn't in the driving seat in the future?
Absolutely! The project with Tommy was kind of just to dip my toe in the water. To test the waters, sort of. I'm an ironic type in private, too, but I'm not one-dimensional, so I hope I haven't set out to have everyone expect pure humor rap every time. I really just want to be creative and, to a greater extent than before, show it off. There's a lot of bragging and boastful rap these days!
Can you tell us about the process when Tommy got in touch? To what extent were you involved in the instrumental?
I thought my first meeting with Tommy would be a bit scary. I had no idea what I was getting into, so I was a bit nervous beforehand. But as soon as he opened the door to the studio I felt welcome and everything just felt completely natural. What a guy! For example, I thought I was going to choke on the rapping. But it almost happened by itself.
He played me a bunch of beats. I stopped at the beat that became "I'm a rapper now," and started rapping something I had written earlier in the week. I always like to be well prepared, so I came up with almost finished lyrics the first time. I think we recorded the vocals in two or three takes.
Then we met once a week for the next 4-5 weeks and recorded 1 song each time plus intro and outro. Then I had some intense weeks with some double shifts at work and writing at night in the weeks between each meeting. Walked around like a Zombie. And when we were done it was time to make a music video, which I made myself and edited in a very simple app on the iPhone. It took time!!
We had a constant dialogue about the instrumental. We started from the beats he had, but he has always been extremely easy to work with. We were both honest about what we liked and didn't like.
The whole Unge Obi thing has happened incredibly quickly, and not least in a very special time. Now that things are opening up, would you like to do more with your artistic career? Will we see you on stage?
Spektrum x10 in 2024 lessgooo. No, that's where I'm a bit ambivalent. I struggle a bit with defining myself as an artist. For me, it's a quantum leap between being a rapper and an artist. I see it as two different products. One of which - live, is a product I haven't had time to develop. I understand that you just have to start somewhere to become good. But if I'm going to do it, I want it to be good. Not just Young Obi showing off his songs. But at the same time, I'm curious to explore new sides of myself.
But yes, I will continue to rap. I will release songs, albums, music videos, digital content and more. So for now, I see myself as a digital artist who is in the starting blocks and a little curious about the live scene.
Even though you've become a "rapper now", I hope your Instagram account lives on. We look forward to more music!
Right around the corner! Hopefully. The Instagram account lives on, it may take a while between each post but that's because it's a surplus thing. Lately it's been mostly writing.
