For Noah Gansallo ’21, a rapper known as NxG, music has been an outlet to express how he feels and where he is in life. 

Gansallo’s single “Eyy Yeah!”currently has over 86,000 streams on Spotify and was written at a particularly tumultuous time in his life.

Ten days before Gansallo’s first live show, his grandfather passed away. Fortunately, Gansallo had a friend by his side who helped him get through it, and he wrote “Eyy Yeah!” for her.

“I think that was the first time I dealt with a death in the family of someone who I actually knew,” Gansallo said. “This friend was really there for me at the time and it was sort of a thank you letter to her.”

Music has been a major part of Gansallo’s life.  As a child, he took both piano and violin lessons, and he taught himself how to play guitar and bass.

When Gansallo first arrived at St. Joe’s for Admitted Students Day in 2017, Suzanne Sorkin, Ph.D., associate professor and chair of the music, theatre and film department, immediately recognized his musical talent.

“He was a prospective student to come in as a computer science major with a music minor,” Sorkin said. “We talked about his experience with piano, with voice and in writing his own music.”

Gansallo eventually switched his major to communication studies but kept music and music industry minors.

Three years after first meeting Sorkin, Gansallo enrolled in Sorkin’s Music Theory I course, furthering his exploration of music. Sorkin said she noticed Gansallo’s “genuine curiosity” for music and his “excellent ear.”

Throughout his semester in Music Theory I, Gansallo showed Sorkin some of his original music: old songs, such as “Mission” from his 2019 album “In Loving Memory,” as well as new songs, such as his popular 2020 single “Baguettes.”

Sorkin said she was happy to offer advice to Gansallo as he developed his music.

“My desire is for students to take the material that we’re learning and use it as tools in their creative toolbox,” Sorkin said.

In August 2020, Gansallo released his extended play (EP) record, “Genesis,” which was meant to represent his musical journey. 

“It wasn’t a representation of where I was at the time, but it was a representation of what it had taken to get me to where I was,” Gansallo said.

After the release of “Genesis,” Laura Veras, artist manager and artists and repertoire (A&R) representative from Boston, Massachusetts, began to work with Gansallo as his manager. 

The two first met through a mutual friend and began a more casual friendship before officially working together. At the time, Veras was interning with producer Che Pope, who had previously collaborated with rappers such as Lauryn Hill and Kanye West. 

According to Veras, Pope was looking for “really dope hip-hop artists” to work with, so she pitched Gansallo’s music to him, giving both herself and Gansallo a boost in confidence.

“Che [Pope] really liked it,” Veras said. “That even more so validated my taste and my ears.”

Veras officially became Gansallo’s manager in October 2020, and the two have been working together ever since. Working with Veras opened up more opportunities for Gansallo. He recently began collaborating with producers in California that have worked with national-level artists, such as Drake and Lil Uzi Vert.

Despite the coronavirus pandemic and its limitations, Veras said the music industry is still moving forward.

“Honestly one of the only differences is live shows and touring,” Veras said. “That’s the biggest hit that the music industry has taken obviously. But besides that, I think it’s been pretty clear, just by even looking at your favorite artists and seeing that they are still releasing music, that part of it is not really stopping.”

Gansallo said that the pandemic has, in a way, forced him to become better. Due to the restrictions of studios and in-person meetings, he learned to record by himself and improve his production skills with limited outside help.

Gansallo’s journey will continue with the release of his next project, titled “Outta Here Soon,” which he has been hinting at on his Instagram (@xgseason). Although there is no release date set, Gansallo said he hopes it will extend his reach and introduce an entirely new audience to NxG.

“I think that’s going to be more of an explosion onto the local scene, and national scene,” Gansallo said. 

“Genesis,” as well as Gansallo’s various singles, are available to stream on Spotify and Apple Music.