Every once in a while a deep YouTube spiral has you looking up at the clock at 4am counting the number of minutes of sleep you’ll get if you watch just one more. Happens to the best of us. If you haven’t spent one of those nights/early mornings watching Nardwuar the Human Serviette “doot doodla doot doo” in the face of the most famous celebrities, mostly rappers, you are wasting space on this planet.
Nardwuar is unequivocally the best interviewer in human history. His knowledge of random facts about anyone and everyone he interviews is beyond comprehension, even to the people he is interviewing. He’ll know stories about what happened on a random street corner when Kendrick Lamar was 14 or what Post Malone’s 6th grade English teacher wrote on his report card. He always comes with personal gifts like a copy of an unreleased mixtape from an artist someone listened to alone in the confines of their own home.
He’s a weird ass dude from Vancouver Canada but once you know Nardwuar you’ll see why he has interviewed everyone from Jay Z, who recommended him to Pharrell, to Skrillex to Nas to Cardi B to Kendrick. The best ones are with the hardest rappers who start off trying to figure out who the fuck this guy is and then end up laughing and inviting Nardwuar to their family Thanksgiving.
My personal favorite Nardwuar interview is with the greatest rapper of all time, Lil Wayne.
It features my favorite clip of anything every recorded on camera:
Wayne got the hookup from Drake, who’s done two of these with this Canadian legend. The 2010 version is such a pure and iconic Drake, who is definitely not high out of his mind the entire interview.
Nardwuar is always asking around at who else is in the room, and sometimes even knows random stories about them too. Kendrick Lamar’s Nardwuar interview is a must watch:
2010 J. Cole/Nardwuar:
If you can stomach the weirdos at the beginning of these, watch these compilations of rappers mind blown by the facts that Nardwuar is bringing up.
Pharrell’s entire interview with N.E.R.D is worth the watch. He called it “one of the most impressive interviews I’ve ever experienced in my life. Seriously.” Later in the same interview, Pharrell said, “Your research is second-to-none. Second-to-none.”
At 5:54 of that video he brings up Travis Scott’s high school Spanish teacher with the big titties. His reaction is so genuinely floored.
9:32 Nardwuar brings up where Tory Lanez used to draw the sun in his crayon drawings and I think he’s ready to call the FBI.
The Mac Miller interview still makes me cry.
I’ve never seen anyone have more fun in his life than DaBaby:
I could keep going, there are literally thousands of interviews on his YouTube worth watching and by god I’ve watched almost all of them so you should too.
And if you know Nardwuar, you know he ends every video with a “keep on rockin’ in the free world”, and then “doot doola doot doo…” where you’re supposed to answer “doot doo!”. He then freezes like a statue for as long as it takes to make it physically uncomfortable for everyone involved or until you start having fun with it.
Diplo has won the best ending:
Still the best Nardwuar ending https://t.co/Odr0oOdolF
— diplo (@diplo) September 8, 2017
https://www.complex.com/pigeons-and-planes/2012/07/the-10-best-endings-to-nardwuar-interviews
Good luck going to sleep tonight.