Nitzia Scott, better known by her stage nameNitty Scott, is an Americanemcee from Brooklyn, New York. Her breakthrough came in 2010, when the video for her freestyle over "Monster" went viral. She has performed at the BET hip hop awards and the Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival, among others. Scott released her debut street album The Cassette Chronicles in 2011, followed by her critically acclaimed EP The Boombox Diaries, Vol. 1 in 2012 and her debut albumArt Of Chill in 2014. She followed it up with her second album, Creature!, in 2017.
Biography
Scott was born in Michigan and raised in Orlando, Florida. Her mother is Puerto Rican and her father is African American from New Orleans. Scott started rapping at the age of 14, while she was attending art school with a major in creative writing. She found writing a form of personal expression and was creating poetry before transitioning to become a musician. At the age of 17, she moved to Brooklyn, New York to pursue a career as a rapper. She graduated from the Secondary School for Journalism at John Jay High School in Park Slope, Brooklyn. While in New York, Scott created the Boombox Family hip-hop movement to "preserve and progress hip-hop culture". Due to internal changes, Nitty dissolved the Boombox Family label in 2014 and began other independent business ventures. In an interview with MSN she stated that if she hadn't pursued a career as a musician, she would have attended college to study Journalism and Broadcast Communications. In 2011, she performed at the BET hip hop awards, among DJ Premier, Estelle and Lecrae. She was also part of the 2011 Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival lineup, headlined by Q-Tip. In 2012, Scott performed at the Royal Arena Festival in Switzerland among Ice Cube and Mos Def. Scott released her first official EP The Boombox Diaries, Vol. 1 on August 28, 2012. The record features production from 6th Sense, AraabMuzik, Cassius Clay, DJ Tedsmooth, !llmind and J57, and has guest appearances by Kendrick Lamar, Action Bronson and The Kid Daytona, among others. It was supported by the lead single "Auntie Maria's Crib". The EP received the Editor's Pick at DJ Booth. In a positive review, Nick De Molina of XXL gave it an XL rating, describing Nitty as a "conscious rapper" and praised the production as "strong and diverse". On June 16, 2013, Scott released her video for the song "Flower Child" featuring Kendrick Lamar on MTV Jams. The video shoot was completely funded through the support of fans and contributors to her Kickstarter campaign. On May 23, 2014, Scott released her debut album The Art of Chill.
Scott's rapping style has been compared to that of MC Lyte, Lauryn Hill, Ladybug Mecca, and Big Pun. She has stated that she is influenced by the Wu-Tang Clan, A Tribe Called Quest and Slum Village, among others. In Creature!, Scott explores her Afro-Boricua identity through sonic references to Afro-Caribbean musical cultures; tracks on the album include collaborations with Taíno artists, recordings of indigenous coquí frogs, and tumba drums, all meant to evoke a pre-colonial past.
