Rest In Peace, Nasty Nes (1961-2025)

An attempt at an elegy that feels more like a long journal entry

Please consider donating to: Nasty Nes Rodriguez's Legacy: Help Support His Family

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Listening to Nasty Nes on Sunday nights was a ritual I rarely missed in my teen years. From around sixth grade until my senior year in high school I tuned in nearly every week to listen to Rap Attack on KCMU 90.3 FM, 7-9 p.m.

That he proudly repped being Filipino was an impact multiplier for me. There were other Filipino DJs I looked up to from turtablists and mobile crews, but Nes was on a different level. His influence on a whole generation of Seattle music, on West Coast hip-hop culture, on the radio DJ industry, and its lasting ripple effects can’t be overstated. In 1981, he started the first all-rap radio show west of the Mississippi river (Freshtracks, KFOX 1250 AM). He co-founded Nastymix Records and went gold and platinum independently, and went on tours with Sir-Mix-a-Lot in a time where not only were they the only acts repping Seattle, but often one of a few repping West Coast, period. After being unceremoniously fired from KFOX in 1988, KCMU music director Don Yates (aka DJ Bass!) hit him up to bring his AM radio show to FM. He linked with Shockmaster Glen Boyd, beginning a run as host of Rap Attack, inspired by DJ Mr. Magic’s show of the same name in NYC.

Accolades aside, his voice left the biggest impact on me. He was high-spirited, jovial, with a genuine love for the music he played and the culture it came from. He def had “radio voice” with a texture, pacing and inflection expected from a professional who studies the craft. Even then, he’d occasionally break the “radio DJ” character, revealing real emotions. I still remember how choked up he got on his farewell show, when he passed the torch to his co-host, Kutfather (RIP). I can still hear his laughter, which, it’s hard to explain, but it sounds like a Filipino uncle type laugh.

Sometimes, I would call in on those Sunday nights. No song request, just hoping to get a shoutout. The line was usually busy, but when I got through, it made my night, even if I didn’t get a shout. If you ever tuned in to KCMU Rap Attack in the early/mid 90s and heard a shout to “G in Bremerton,” that was me.

Last Night and a Thousand Other Nights Before, a DJ Saved My Life

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It was Sunday, late afternoon, when I read online, via message posted by his wife Llola Rodriguez, that Nestor “Nasty Nes” Rodriguez passed away the previous day. It didn’t feel real. A memory flashed. A Sunday afternoon 30 years ago, getting my tape ready to record Rap Attack. I’m pointing the stereo antenna east toward Seattle, hoping for a clearer signal. But in this memory, no music. Just static. My brief nostalgic trip became noisy and fuzzy. I was teleported back to a present to face my disbelief and grief.

It’s surreal to know that just past midnight on the day Nes would later join the ancestors, I was on air at KEXP, wrapping up Street Sounds, filling in as a guest host on the same show that I grew up listening to him host. I closed the show with a salute to Nes. I don’t know why I did, but something compelled me to end the show by acknowledging its history.

From Rap Attack to Street Sounds. From Shockmaster Glen Boyd to Stas the Boss and DJ Yaddy. For almost 2000 weeks straight—through a name change, physical relocations, new radio station call letters, and a move from Sunday to Friday nights—it remains, resilient, a living document of past and present. It now holds claim to being both the longest running mix show on KEXP/KCMU, as well as the longest continuously running all hip-hop radio show on the West Coast. From ‘88 ‘til.

In our most recent exchange, Nes tapped in to let me know that he heard me hosting Street Sounds on my very first show as fill-in DJ. He said he was proud, and that he was moved by being acknowledged, especially during Filipino American History Month. I responded with gratitude, let him know how much it meant to get the message. I missed a message that would come months later, where he hit me up to say he recently listened to “Freewheelin’,” the song I shouted him out in. It would be his last message to me. I tapped the heart reaction emoji instead of typing a reply, which fucks me up and makes me not want to use reaction emojis as responses anymore.

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The way Nes says “yeeeeeeeeah” at the end of the “Posse on Broadway” video… yeah, I do that too.

I wrote and rapped these bars to close the second verse on “Freewheelin’” off the first Blue Scholars album:

I'm waiting on a Sunday night listening to Nasty Nes
paying them dudes, when KEXP was KCMU

It’s funny how nostalgic I had already become for the early-mid 90s… in 2003.

By then, Nes had moved from Seattle to Los Angeles, Rap Attack became Street Sounds, and KCMU moved from the University of Washington campus to become KEXP, near Seattle Center. My DJ aspirations gave way to rapper aspirations, and I dropped out of UW with one quarter to go.

I wrote those bars in 2003, working on the first Blue Scholars album (it came out February 2004, re-released June 2005). At the same time, I held down a day job as an exhibits assistant at The Wing Luke Asian Museum (now The Wing Luke Museum). The first exhibit I worked on focused on the Asian Pacific Americans in the local hip-hop scene. It was called It’s Like That: APA’s and the Seattle Hip-hop Scene. I gotta say, in retrospect: for being 23 and curating my first museum exhibit, with both an album and a child on the way, I did a phenomenal job.

This story would’ve been impossible to tell without Nasty Nes, so I reached out to him for an oral history interview. He was more than happy to oblige, even sending a big package of artifacts that included old gear, records, press photos. I was 23, in my first full time job, working on my first album on the side, getting paid to interview an OG who had kicked down so many doors I was only then beginning to walk through, and would continue walking through for the next 20 years. I’m humbled to know our conversation that day in 2003 will live forever in the WLM archives¹.

He really picked up the phone and said “Good afternoon, Rap Attack” lol

Today, I read this interview for the first time in over 20 years. I remember how emotional he got at times. Toward the end of the interview, I asked Nes about leaving KCMU. He said about his farewell Rap Attack show:

You know what, man? God, that show. It was so great because I had my old program director from KFOX show up. A lot of friends came up on the show, and I was able to play a lot of songs that I broke through the years. And then when I knew it was the last time I was going to talk on the mic, I just choked up and just broke down.

I got a lot of messages on my pager and voicemail. People were crying too. I just couldn't help it. It was like saying goodbye to everyone, because you got to understand, man, I grew up as a kid that really didn’t have much, and it was because of the radio and hip-hop that gave me a life where I could make a living on my own without relying on my parents. And it gave me a lot, it helped me with my self-esteem because I grew up being picked on a lot and stuff.

And it just gave me my own identity. The most important thing was it made me really proud of who I am, in my race, as being Filipino. And just to be kind of, sort of, a role model, and being Asian and Filipino at the same time, made it even better, man, you know.

I like how “Nasty Nes” became “nes rodriguez” for the Filipino community event. My parents wouldn’t have let me go to a dance in the 80s thrown by somebody with Nasty in their name

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In 2005, just two years after the museum exhibit, a year before I would quit my job to pursue rap full-time, the first Blue Scholars album was out. It made some noise. By then, we’d met Bambu and Kiwi, who were then performing together as Native Guns. They were both from L.A. and tapped in with Filipino community organizers there, who we met on a trip to LA in 2003. All this interconnectedness led to getting booked for our first headlining concert in L.A.², at Club Fais Do-do on W Adams, with Native Guns also on the bill.

I mention all this to provide context that, despite having made some noise in Seattle, we had no business headlining a show at a real venue in Los Angeles at that early stage of our career. At least not without going through the usual booking agency/venue promoter channels. But it happened because of connects we made through community organizing networks.

A decent crowd showed up and we did O.K. Some fans in the crowd knew our music, did all the crowd participation things. Many also there, having paid to get in, stood there and stared at the stage. LA love, as they call it. Similar to New York love, but even more stoic, probably because the weed is more potent on this coast.

So I’m onstage, not getting the reaction I’d get in my hometown, trying to thug it out. I’ll never forget: middle of our set, I’m rapping over the Camp Lo “Luchini” instrumental, looking out into the crowd. I see a stocky light brown man in the middle a few rows back from the front. He’s wearing a tank top, sunglasses and rocking a buzzcut mohawk. Holy shit, it’s Nasty Nes. And he’s enjoying himself.

I vaguely remember the homie saying before the show that he invited Nes to come through, but I forgot that by the time I hit the stage. Or maybe I invented the idea that he came on his own accord, without being invited. Whatever the case, he pulled up, and was the first to greet us after the show. What we talked about and for how long, I don’t recall. It was 20 years ago. But what I recall mostly is a visual and a feeling: looking into the crowd, seeing him there, validated af.

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Real ones know that Nasty Nes was featured at the end of Eazy-E’s “Radio”. Realer ones know that he was the first radio DJ to play N.W.A. on the radio ever, anywhere, making his own radio edits manually on reel-to-reel tape. But the realest know that he tried his hand at acting. Here’s Nes giggin’ with a boombox in the background of a fight scene in Kung Pow: Enter the Fist.

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Ice T - “I’m Your Pusher”
Sir Mix-a-Lot - “F The BS”
Boogie Down Productions - “My Philosophy”
L’Trimm - “Cars With the Boom”
Gucci Crew II - “Sally (That Girl)”
Stetsasonic - “Sally”
Rodney O & Joe Cooley - “Cooley High”
2 Live Crew - “I Can’t Go For That”
Bobby Jimmy and the Critters - “NY LA Rappers”
De La Soul - “Plug Tunin’ (Original 12” Version)”
Everlast - “Syndication”
Sir Mix-A-Lot - "Posse on Broadway"

Songs from Nasty Nes’s first Rap Attack show on KCMU in 1988. 40 minutes of it were digitized off cassette and posted on the internet.

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When Nes suffered a heart attack last October, he revealed that he was living with multiple health conditions including kidney failure and pneumonia. Medical expenses were mounting, so he did what so many other musicians and artists have done. Family and friends started a GoFundMe to help his road to recovery.

It’s heartbreaking to see our OGs, our pioneers, our legends turn to crowdfunding in order to access basic health care. It’s the sad inevitability of working in an industry that offers no pension plans, no 401ks, no health insurance. For those fortunate enough to own their own IP and publishing and still resonate with fans, the safety net comes in the form of royalty checks. For everyone else: the multitude of artists, musicians, creative industry workers, independent contractors who never amassed generational wealth (but who collectively helped the owners in the industry do so), good luck.

A glimmer of hope is that this issue is gaining traction outside of industry circles in ways never seen before. Chappell Roan put the issue front and center in her Best New Artist Grammy speech, mainstreaming a conversation advocating for liveable wages and health care for developing artists. While it doesn’t look like record execs are going to loosen their bag grip anytime soon, it looks like some artists with big bags are donating funds³ to make up for what the corporations and the state won’t provide. But what about the artists who paved the way? We’ve made songs about how DJs save our lives, but what about saving theirs?

In his final months, Nes continued to promote new artists, soliciting music submissions for his radio promotion, RapAttackLives.com. Just last week, Nes posted on IG that he was on the mend and releasing a line of t-shirts with non-profit organization beats4hope. A portion of proceeds would go toward medical bills, while also helping the organization provide food and clothing to people experiencing homelessness. His final posts were tributes to a colleague who recently passed.

The DJ controls what we hear, but it really isn’t about them. Their role is to facilitate. To use their platform to give a voice to those who are listening, and give listens to those using their voice. They help build careers, livelihoods, movements even. If music heals (it does) and music is medicine (it is), then the DJ is an apothecary. Or a shaman, or a dope pusher. Nes Rodriguez understood this to the very end. Even in his greatest time of need, Kuya Nes amplified others, wanted to heal others.

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Nasty Nes, in his own words

• OurStory: Legacy of Northwest Hip Hop - an oral history project by 206 Zulu Seattle (embedded up there ☝🏽)

• The Birth of Seattle Rap by Novocaine 132 - a recently published book on the Seattle hip-hop scene’s early days. Foreword written by Nasty Nes.

• KEXP - Filipino Hip Hop 206: DJ Nasty Nes - an interview with Gabriel Teodros in 2021 as part of a podcast series focused on Filipinos in the Seattle hip-hop community.

• 1988: Nasty Nes on Seattle's Halcyon Days of Hip-Hop - a 2023 interview with Larry Mizell, Jr. for KEXP’s 50 Years of Hip-hop series.

1. Thanks Ken Matsudaira, Senior Exhibit Developer and Oral History Manager, for digging this up quickly for me.

2. Like, in a live concert venue, where you had to buy tickets to get in. We did a few informal performances at community events in LA before this.

3. https://www.vulture.com/article/chappell-roan-backline-care-we-got-you-donations.html