Navy Blue Breaks Down Each Track From ‘Sir Render’

Sage Elsesser aka Navy Blue, continues to be one of the more interesting artists in the game.

The California native is not only a rapper, producer, pro skater and model, he’s also cousins with James Earl Jones, and his late family member’s iconic voice is featured throughout this project as Navy used clips of his narration of Richard Wright’s classic Native Son. When asked if the classic 1940 novel inspired his tenth studio album and the third in his “Knighthood” trilogy, he said it was more about the gravitas of Jones’ narration.

“I’ve always relied on literature, but Native Son the book itself wasn’t necessarily something that inspired the record,” Navy tells me during a nearly two-hour conversation at Billboard’s Manhattan office. “It was more so hearing James Earl narrate it, listening intently and finding something from the middle of the book that it was applicable to the beginning of the story.”

Sir Render isn’t the typical installment in a trilogy. The 15-track tape is actually a prequel to the two previous albums Memoirs of Armour and The Sword & The Soaring. To explain this unique way of presenting a story, Sage uses the Game of Thrones universe as an example. “Game of Thrones is the main [anchor TV show],” he explains. “Then they have House of Dragons, which goes way back in time, and the most recent A Knight in the Seven Kingdoms.” (We start to go back and forth about how good the side mission the latter was — that’s another conversation for another day, though I will share our brief shared review: “That s—t is hard. Nah, It was tough.”)

Sir Render features the talented rapper and producer Mike Shabb out of Montréal, dynamic duo Armand Hammer, Navy’s right hand in Earl Sweatshirt and his mentor the late, great Brooklyn rapper and producer Ka. The production credits are also a family affair, including Jason Wool, The Alchemist, Vertiqua, the aforementioned Shabb, Mario Luciano, QThree, Bori, Malik Abdul-Rahmaan, Shungu, and of course, Navy Blue himself.

This record has layers to it, and the only way to peel them back is to listen intently and let the music take you into the world the West Coast MC first introduced with Memoirs in Armour. You’ll have visions of knights in battle, and the sound of swords sheathing, as Navy gives the listeners some of his best raps and storytelling yet.

Billboard sat down with the rapper to talk about each track on the new project. Check out Navy Blue’s Sir Render track-by-track breakdown below.