"What's Good?" W/ Charlie Taylor · The 5th Element Podcast Network

Ep.360 - "It's All Timing, It's All Destined" W/ NappyHigh

December 4, 2025·1 hr 28 min·6 clips

NappyHigh, a California firefighter, describes watching an entire ten-block stretch of every house on both sides of the street burning to the ground simultaneously during the LA fires, and taking his phone out because there was nothing else to do.

1. What's Good episode 360 features Charlie Taylor's third interview with California-based beatmaker and producer NappyHigh, conducted shortly after NappyHigh's Praises EP with rapper Science. 2. NappyHigh is Charlie's eighth most-listened-to artist in his year-end streaming recap and is described as rarely giving interviews, with What's Good being his primary interview outlet. 3. The episode's central themes are creative philosophy — how to approach completion, what gives music human character — and a firsthand account of the January 2025 LA fires. 4. NappyHigh is a California firefighter and describes the LA fires as the most extreme event of his seven-year career, with wind gusts of 80-to-90 mph and gusts up to 105 mph. 5. He describes seeing a fully involved 30-floor apartment building, a full scene conflagration of at least 300-400 simultaneous home fires, and a bulldozer removing abandoned cars from Sunset Boulevard to allow evacuation traffic to move. 6. Standing in the middle of a street where every house for ten blocks was on fire, NappyHigh says he had no choice but to take his phone out: 'it felt like a movie, and I was like I gotta have this in my phone.' 7. NappyHigh moved from Palmdale to Northridge during this period to be 15 minutes from his regular studio rather than over an hour away, and lost his full deposit when the landlord kept it without prior notice. 8. His music output since 2020 includes the albums Villains and Menace, an instrumental album, a color EP series (Orange, Yellow, Green, Burgundy), and the Praises EP with rapper Science on the LaRange Old Soul label. 9. NappyHigh's color EPs are described as his most experimental output: he approaches each one without a fixed plan, describes it as having 'a blueprint but no starting point,' and allows the direction to change substantially during production. 10. He recounts asking engineer Chuck Kennedy — while Mick Jenkins was also present in the studio — how to know when a project is done; Kennedy said, 'you just decide,' an answer NappyHigh found genuinely clarifying. 11. Charlie uses GTA Vice City as a parallel: developed in nine months with visible unfinished areas — an empty oversized beach, blank map zones — yet it became an iconic and still-engaging game, suggesting that deliberate constraints on completion can produce character rather than reducing quality. 12. NappyHigh's key production philosophy is deliberately not quantizing his drum patterns — he never time-corrects beats to a grid — which gives them a human swing. 13. When working with rappers like Science, the off-grid timing is received positively: Science would say 'I like that it's kind of offbeat' and immediately find an approach; singers typically ask 'what's the tempo?' and struggle. 14. Charlie connects the non-quantization philosophy to a New York Times/Hulu documentary on Jay Dilla, in which Busta Rhymes describes spending an unusually long time writing to a Dilla beat because the drums changed on every loop, forcing an entirely distinct internal rhythm. 15. Burgundy is described as NappyHigh's most underrated color EP — he says 'the pressure was immense' releasing it after Menace — and it almost secured a sync deal. 16. The Burgundy artwork was created in collaboration with photographer MJ and a Spanish designer whose name NappyHigh cannot recall; he gave the designer a broad brief and the designer 'executed it exactly to a T.' 17. NappyHigh's general approach to visual collaborators is to give a broad description without micromanaging, explicitly treating them as co-artists rather than service providers — a philosophy he applied to every album cover. 18. The Enigmatic EP with singer Maggie King is described by NappyHigh as a project he feels could have been stronger; it was rushed by label head LaRange, who needed it immediately, and NappyHigh believes he could have contributed more given more time. 19. Listeners interested in independent hip-hop production, creative process discussions, and firsthand accounts of the LA fires will find the episode rewarding. 20. Listeners seeking structured debate or broad cultural commentary will find the episode's conversational interview format and music-industry focus a narrow fit.

As heard by us

A shaggy third interview that lands on timing, second-guessing, and attention to visuals.

Charlie Taylor makes a third interview feel loose and personal, with timing, memory, and the shift that happens once a project is out in the world doing most of the work.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

A loose catch-up with a forgotten prior interview, a rushed EP, and a conversation that keeps circling back to visuals.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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