NAHreally: Extra Cheese

In 2025 NAHreally dropped the album “Secret Pancake.” 2026 finds NAHreally keeping with the food theme on his tenth album titled “Extra Cheese.” The album is classic NAHreally with barebones beats and contemplative poetry.

Extra Cheese is written, performed, recorded and produced entirely by NAHreally. The 11-track album comes to us courtesy of Zilla Rocca’s Three Dollar Pistol record label.

NAHreally chatted with The Real Hip-Hop about changing his worldview, resisting forces that are trying to take away our humanity, and his new album, Extra Cheese.

TRHH: Why’d you call the new album Extra Cheese?

NAHreally: Good question, you’re the first person to ask me so I haven’t had my good rehearsed answer yet. I was working on it and I was going through the songs and I was realizing I was kind of leaning into being a little more, maybe silly is the word, maybe not so serious in some cases. Way back in 2019 I put out a song called “Shout Out To Me” and there was a line that said, “I’m not a winner or loser I’m just in between/If I was stadium seating I’d be the mezzanine/If I were making a pizza I’d add some extra cheese/If you were making a pizza I’d share my recipe.”

Something about that “extra cheese” stuck with me. All my self-released stuff from like 2018 when I wrote the song, “the label” quote-unquote, it wasn’t a real label, was Extra Cheese. So, it just kind of was this thing and so this is my tenth release and I found myself leaning into being a little cheesy. I was like, “All right, it’s time. This is Extra Cheese.” It kind of just all came together sort of realizing the direction that the project was taking and I was like, “All right, let’s call it Extra Cheese.”

TRHH: “I Need A Hobby” is an interesting song on the album. Do you really feel like you need a hobby, or do you need to push yourself more creatively?

NAHreally: Yeah, where I ultimately land is it’s not gonna happen. Rapping for me and making music started as a hobby, and now like I say in the song, it’s something slightly more. It’s a hobby plus, right? No, I don’t think I need a hobby. This is what I do in my spare time. But there are moments though, especially when I’m banging my head against the wall trying to work through a creative block or whatever, I’m like, “Why did I do this to myself? Couldn’t I just be knitting?”

It is funny though I said, “Had me thinking I should try to get my jumper back,” and I did start playing basketball again, so maybe that is a little bit of a hobby to add there. But no, I stick with the conclusion of the song, like, no, this is what I’ve committed my extra time to. Whether it’s a hobby, whether it’s a business, whether it’s something in between, this is just what I do, so, it’s not going to change.

TRHH: That song resonated with me because I’ve felt that way, like I need to do something different. My therapist always tells me, “You’re at your happiest when you’re doing nothing,” and it’s true [laughs]. That is my happiest, but you feel like you need to be doing something when you’re doing nothing.

NAHreally: Yeah.

TRHH: So, it’s like this guilt over me, but yeah, I feel like that, too. You mentioned video games. I buy all these games and I never play them. I just have like tons of games and I don’t have time, or I don’t make the time to play them. 

NAHreally: I haven’t been a video game player since, I honestly want to say NBA Live 06. I think that was Dwyane Wade on the cover. I was playing like crazy up until then, and then I just don’t do it anymore. I know people who that’s kind of what they do when they’re turning their brain off or whatever. It seems to work for them and I sometimes get a little bit jealous of them. I fall into the same trap like it’s this productivity thing and it’s like, “Oh, I better not watch this trash TV, I better watch a documentary that’s gonna make me learn something.” It’s just this sort of endless cycle kind of a trap you can fall into.

TRHH: You need it, bro. You need it. Mindless entertainment is so important. Like we talked about basketball before this, I watch pro wrestling and basketball. That’s like my ‘zone out’ and ‘I’m chilling’ moment. Because life is hard, man, and the world is crazy right now. You need to turn it off and just do nothing. It helps you recharge.

NAHreally: Yeah.

TRHH: On the song “1010 Wins” you have a line where you say, “My worldview changed when it learned to take a beating.” Explain that line.

NAHreally: Ideally, as people get older they learn more about the world and reassess things that they believed or we’re told was true. I don’t know if that’s all that popular right now, it definitely is for sure, but I think just the process of going through my 20s, getting into my 30s, that’s what it should be, that’s what it can be. If you’re willing to be open enough to revisit perspectives that you grew up with that you were assuming were just set in stone, if you’re willing to part ways with those, or adjust them, or reassess them, that’s a huge win. So, one of the biggest things I’ve learned is just to be open to reassessing and trying to understand things how they are. And guess what? Everything I believe might flip ten more times before I’m dead. It just is what it is.

TRHH: Yeah. If you stay the same, you’re not growing, that’s for sure.

NAHreally: I love the term “worldview.” I like how it’s one word. It’s just such an interesting concept to me just the idea of like all the thoughts, and all the beliefs, and all the theories that you have equal this one worldview. And if you’re not poking and prodding at it it’s not gonna improve. I also said around that line, “Reality is built upon a shaky foundation/From which I’ve removed more than a few Jenga pieces/My worldview improved when it learned to take a beating.” That’s what it’s about, like poking and prodding and seeing how you can be more correct, more moral, more whatever.

TRHH: “How We Always Gotta Be” has a crazy guitar on it. Is that played or sampled?

NAHreally: Sampled.

TRHH: OK, without snitching where’d you get that sample from? 

NAHreally: I think it’s the sixties, early sixties. One of a few guitarists I go back to often. I’ll say this too, the sample that it’s from is a capital S standard song. The version that I grabbed it from is not one of those ones, but it’s from a rendition of a standard for sure.

TRHH: I also like the guitar on “Find Our Way.” In that song you say, “Two steps forward, one back/Where I’m at is where I’m at, resist reaching for the map.” Are you content with where you are in life?

NAHreally: It’s so hard to say, because I’m still working on a lot of things. Trying to move forward with music, trying to be a better partner to my wife, try to be more attentive, more present, still got some career goals that I can’t help but keep trying to chip away at. But at the same time you want to balance it out with being like, “OK, where I’m at can be enough should I choose for it to be enough.” That song actually kind of stems from many conversations with my wife on how there’s no correct spot to be. You could tell yourself that you need to do this, this, this, and this, but at the end of the day you just kind of are where you are.

You can buy into external ideas of where someone should be at this age, that age, this situation, that, but at the end of the day, yeah, definitely keep striving. I think in some ways continuing to strive for things is to be OK with kind of where you’re at. I guess I can be content but I’m still restless with where I’m at, so I’m always just trying to keep moving forward. I don’t think necessarily in all that many traditional ways on what would be on that proverbial map.

TRHH: What you said makes me think about many years ago I remember somebody telling me, “When you turn 30 you’re gonna be depressed.” I thought it was a strange thing to say, but then when I turned 30 I wasn’t depressed, but when I hit 31 it hit me. It’s all because society tells us, “You should have this, this, and this, by the time you’re 30.” So, I warn all young people — don’t fall in the trap, you might feel that way, but it’s only temporary. It’s messed up how we feel less than if we don’t have it all by 30. Thirty is young.

NAHreally: It’s super young. Hopefully it’s a third.

TRHH: Hopefully! You don’t have it all figured out at 30. It’s impossible, man, and that’s OK.

NAHreally: Yeah. As much as it feels like everyone is judging where you’re at, nobody is watching at all! You know it, everyone knows that instinctively from whatever age, like 20 years old, but it takes so long to believe it and just be like, “Wow, actually nobody cares and I’m just drumming up all of this concern for no reason.”

TRHH: It’s crazy. And so true. On the song “Human Error” you end your verse talking about focusing on decency and how negative things can ultimately affect you and your loved ones. How do you keep yourself on track to avoid the bad things in order to be your best for your family?

NAHreally: I don’t know, man, it’s like a constant struggle. I think there’s so many forces that are trying to take away kind of our humanity from the micro level. I think of this look when someone’s like looked up from looking at their phone and they’re looking at you while you’re talking to them but like they’re not there. That’s just such a common thing now. From that small thing I’m trying to work on that, and not be that way, and be present for people, and not get so sucked into this stupid stuff all the way up to the macro level. There are forces that want me to hate my neighbor and I gotta stay questioning those forces, right? I think you’re making a tradeoff to get sucked into those things.

I said, “Recognizing the things that take a piece of me/Move me further from the person I need to be,” for the people in my life. You’re making a trade-off — you’re trading your humanity by buying into those forces. You’re kind of trading off your relationship with other people to be so locked into the phone and not able to be present. It’s a constant battle though because, man, I feel like the world is out to kind of trick us into not being our best self. Whether it’s what we consume, whether we stay on a digital platform for longer, I’m not sure what, but, yeah, it’s constant battle.

TRHH: What do you hope to achieve with Extra Cheese?

NAHreally: I want to sell 100 copies of vinyl and 50 CD’s — that’s it, that’s my goal. We pressed up 100 vinyl, we’re pressing 50 CD’s. Right now, pre-orders are looking good, but that’s my goal. I’m also making kind of like a lyric booklet thing, I think I’m going to get a hundred of those. Some of them I’m sure I’ll give away, some of them I’ll sell, something like that. Shout out to Zilla Rocca at Three Dollar Pistol, when he was down to put out the album I was like, “All right, this is my goal, to sell out the physical copies.” So that’s pretty much it, nice and simple.

Purchase: NAHreally – Extra Cheese