When George Yamazawa and Kane Smego first met as teenage competitors at a poetry slam at Chapel Hill High School, they formed a friendship that would result in several slam poetry awards, nationwide recognition and a hit hip-hop single.
“North Cack,” a song by Durham natives G. Yamazawa, Joshua Gunn and Kane Smego, has surpassed four million views on Facebook and 600,000 views on YouTube. In the song, Yamazawa and Smego pay tribute to their hometown of Durham, North Carolina, citing the Bull City as their inspiration for their music and poetry.
The hip-hop track has garnered attention online since its release in May of last year. Included on Yamazawa’s debut album Shouts to Durham, it has about a million plays on Spotify. The album appeared on several charts nationwide, notably peaking at number 37 on the iTunes top-100 rap chart.
Yamazawa, known by his moniker G. Yamazawa, is a professional spoken-word poet and rapper. In 2005, he founded the Sacrificial Poets group alongside his friend Smego and three other peers, creating a slam poetry team where teens ages 14-19 create and perform for schools and organizations across the nation.
Yamazawa often touches on racial and cultural themes in his work, writing about his experience growing up as an Asian-American in the South. “North Cack” deals with this theme, addressing both his Japanese and Southern identities and how he draws from both to navigate his life.
Smego touches on similar themes, as well. “A lot of my stuff deals with the politics of race,” Smego said, “coming up and living in both [Durham and Chapel Hill] and the kinda differences that exist between them, and how they’re connected to the legacies of the South.”
Smego, a longtime collaborator of Yamazawa and Chapel Hill alumnus, appears on the track, further developing the love for Durham and Southern culture as a whole. Smego participates in several touring poetry programs, including Next Level Hip Hop, which operates as an exchange program that brings hip hop and poetry to developing countries.
“I don’t think any of us saw it coming,” Smego said of the success of the single. “I definitely had the sense that [Yamazawa’s] next project was going to have a little pop to it, but I don’t think any of us were ready for how quick North Cack just kind of blew up.”
Though both Yamazawa and Smego moved to Los Angeles to focus on music, their hometown remains an important part of their art. As Yamazawa puts it in “North Cack,” “Relocated to Cali, but I ain’t likin’ the smog, I’m a Southern north star, I be the light in the dark.”
