NARCY’s latest, No Smoking Allowed, bears an ironic title for an album that sounds like the cigarette-fueled late-night ramblings of an Arab uncle delivered from his usual plastic chair in your family’s backyard—but like lighting up your first smoke, it hits you straight in the chest.
In January 2024, when previous NARCY collaborator and rap legend Yasiin Bey (FKA Mos Def) delivered his commentary on Drake’s ‘shopping with an edge’ music and asked ‘What happens when the columns start buckling?’—few predicted they’d need to answer that question so soon.
We’ve since seen MF DOOM and Madlib’s Madvillainy posthumously receive RIAA gold certification and thunderous applause for Clipse’s victory lap that is Let God Sort Em Out.
All signs answer Yasiin’s earlier question with a clear return to substance over spectacle. For NARCY, this isn’t a return; it’s a vindication. No Smoking Allowed isn’t an entry into the conversation, but more like the conversation finally catching up to him.
Coming off his expansive 2024 double album, To Be An (Arab)—an ambitious project that brought together 17 features and an “AI Therapy Bot”—No Smoking Allowed trades concept for focus. It’s intentionally stripped-down, culling the guest list to just two, Jimmie D and Niko Is.
This “less is more” philosophy extends to the production. Buddha Blaze’s production is minimal, yet packed with feeling, built on clever sampling and a percussive restraint that allows NARCY’s voice to shine. The album is a platform for him to do what he does best: rap his ass off.
Where many modern hip-hop collaborations are born from spreadsheets, NARCY partnership with Buddha Blaze is grounded in a shared ethos. It unites Montreal’s foremost cultural critic and diasporic voice, NARCY, with Kahnawake’s own Buddha Blaze, seasoned radio host, producer, and former tour manager for Indigenous pioneers A Tribe Called Red.
The result? The sound of shots fired at hollow shells, equal parts pointed critique and humor.
To understand its mission statement, you don’t need to look much further than the album cover: a shot of the old American Pavilion from Montreal’s Expo 67, burning to the ground. A torched symbol of fallen power is a fitting emblem for a record that flames imperialism.
Pressing play on the opener and title track, “NO SMOKING ALLOWED,” there’s no chorus to be found—instead, NARCY just goes. The bars are dizzying; at any given moment, you’d have a better chance of winning the lottery than predicting his next line. It demands the listener’s full attention from the very first second.
The third track, “TAKES A VILLAGE,” sees NARCY float over a bed of keys and a soulful sample. He throws jabs at the world and reserves a haymaker for a certain sanctified artist.
He raps, “ain’t no love in the heart of the city, Saint Laurent, but ain’t no love when the artist sh*tty like-”. He lets the line hang, confident the listener knows exactly who he’s talking about.
Buddha Blaze’s sample selection on this album is flawless and deserving of many flowers; you just know a record crate truly hates to see him coming. I’m less interested in sample-snitching than in hearing what he does next, but the choice on track six, “HARAM BAE,” is too remarkable to ignore.
The song is built around “God Is Love” by Italian multi-instrumentalist Alberto Baldan Bembo. On the surface, it’s a beautiful loop; however, there is an easter egg in its source: the soundtrack to an awful 1970s Italian film, Codice d’amore orientale (Oriental Love Code), about a young couple escaping arranged marriages to explore the Kama Sutra.
Placing a sample from that film on a song called “Haram Bae”? Let’s just say if it was accidental, it’s as accidental as me forgetting to take out the trash last night.
That clever sample placement on “HARAM BAE” is, of course, no accident; in fact, nothing on No Smoking Allowed is. This is a record built with immense care.
Though the sound is stripped-back, that care is present in every detail; each choice feels deliberate and purposeful. It is the unmistakable work of two masters of their craft.
It proves the “late-night rambling” was just a cover for a carefully aimed shot, one that hits you exactly as intended: straight in the chest.
