NAV 1,984

Navraj Singh Goraya (born November 3, 1989), popularly known as NAV, is an Indian-Canadian recording artist, record producer, and engineer from Rexdale, Ontario, Canada, a district of Toronto. His parents are both from the state of Punjab in India and are fluent in the Punjabi language; NAV himself is fluent in both English and Punjabi and practices the religion of Sikhism, the religion the majority of Punjabs practice.

Following in the footsteps of Canadian singer The Weeknd, the co-founder and leader of XO and a frequent collaborator of his, NAV has preferred to let his SoundCloud do the talking in the early stages of his career. Although going largely unnoticed at the time of its release, NAV’s first noteworthy production credit was in July 2015 when he helped co-produce Drake’s diss track towards Meek Mill, “Back to Back.”

After hearing a string of successful SoundCloud hits, including the self-produced “Myself,” in 2016, Amir “Cash” Esmailian, the co-founder and manager of XO, reached out to NAV, giving him an opportunity to expand from the revolutionary music platform. NAV has grabbed numerous features since linking up with The Weeknd and the rest of XO, consisting of Belly, 88GLAM, and Black Atlass. His first and arguably most recognizable feature (which he also solely produced) is Travis Scott’s September 2016 song, “beibs in the trap,” from Travis' sophomore studio album, Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight.

He released “Some Way,” featuring The Weeknd–NAV’s first song to feature another artist–on February 15, 2017. The song is the lead single of his debut self-titled mixtape. Nine days later, February 24, 2017, NAV released the mixtape, featuring the hits “Some Way” and “Myself.” NAV solely produced many songs off the album, and has production credits on every single song. Following the mixtape, he and Atlanta producer, Metro Boomin,, released a collaborative mixtape, titled Perfect Timing, on July 21, 2017.

On May 18, 2018, NAV released his debut studio album, RECKLESS, which featured the hits “Wanted You,” featuring Lil Uzi Vert, “Freshman List,” and “Champion,” featuring Travis Scott. Following the album, NAV was featured alongside Gunna, a frequent collaborator of both NAV and Travis, on Travis' August 2018 song, “YOSEMITE,” from his third studio album, ASTROWORLD. Then, on October 16, 2018, NAV released a collaborative mixtape with Guap Tarantino entirely produced by ATL Jacob titled 1 Night.

Following Lil Uzi Vert’s retirement claims, NAV made similar claims. However, on March 14, 2019, NAV’s manager Cash dropped NAV’s unofficial EP, Brown Boy, which consisted of five unreleased songs from Cash’s phone. Just two days after the release, NAV announced that his sophomore studio album would be titled Bad Habits and would be released on March 22, 2019, featuring the hits “Know Me” and “Tap,” featuring Meek Mill, as well as the album being executive produced by himself, Cash and The Weeknd. NAV released a deluxe version of the album four days later, on March 26, 2019, including all the songs from Brown Boy plus three new songs. During the week ending March 28, 2019, Bad Habits debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 with 82,000 equivalent album units moved. This marks NAV’s first album to hit the top spot.

On May 8, 2020, NAV released his third studio album, Good Intentions, featuring his highest-charting hit “Turks,” with Gunna featuring Travis Scott (the same artists who collaborated on “YOSEMITE”), as well as executive produced by himself, Cash, and The Weeknd again. NAV released a deluxe version of the album three days later, on May 11, 2020, with the second half being his mixtape, Brown Boy 2, a sequel to his March 2019 mixtape, which became his second #1 album on the Billboard 200.