Quin NFN Returns With Second to None

In terms of commercial performance, Quin NFN has sat atop Austin hip-hop for years. He persistently attracts one million-plus monthly listeners on Spotify, regularly garners hundreds of thousands of views for new music videos, and owns three RIAA-certified gold plaques.

As someone who prides himself on consistency, a year-plus of health struggles frustratingly knocked him off his pivot. However, he managed to check off two key firsts last year: debut studio album Never On Time and his maiden ACL Fest performance. His new project, Second To None – an effort named in reference to Austin’s most-streamed rapper feeling underrated – arrived last month.

Hard Times

The 78724 native first experienced a decline in his health toward the end of 2022. The artist – born Quinlan Sharif McAfee – claims his symptoms, namely bloody stool and increasingly swollen lymph nodes across his body, caused doctors to suspect he might have colon cancer. He initially felt some trepidation toward going through requisite procedures to properly diagnose his condition – primarily citing a heart arrhythmia that makes him sensitive to anesthesia he’d presumably need at some point, and stress involved in booking a colonoscopy further heightened his wariness. His weight dropped to 107 pounds after roughly a year of eating a near-exclusive turkey and white rice diet. He’d eventually undergo a colonoscopy after seeing a gastroenterologist, which revealed a noncancerous colon polyp. A medical evaluation this past May cleared him of any cancer concerns, thus ending an exhausting year-and-a-half process featuring months spent almost entirely indoors and recording sessions behind a mask.

“I got my polyp removed, so now I'm ready to just go full throttle with the music,” he explains over a Zoom call. “That's really what held me back for about a year. People thought I wasn’t dropping because I just didn't care or I didn’t have the work ethic I used to, but it wasn't that. I was going through a lot of problems.”

And health issues also extended to other members of his family – the mother of his daughter experienced a rough case of preeclampsia while conceiving their child last year. Although their situations reached a “real bad” point and he felt “depressed,” his daughter turned 1 last month. He excitedly says everything is “good now” and pinpoints family as his primary inspiration for resilience.

“I got kids,” he says. “I'm 23 – I’ve been the man of the house since I was 17. I've been giving my mama hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“I really have no choice [but to rebound]. That's the only reason I ended up going to get my colonoscopy and making sure everything was good with me because at first I was like, ‘If it’s cancer, I’m just going to let it kill me.’ That was my mindframe until I got to the point where all my lymph nodes got swollen. I was like, ‘I might die anyway. If I die in the procedure or if I die with cancer, either way I'm gon’ die.’

“I couldn't give up. I got too many people depending on me.”

Second to None

Though Second to None’s streets-oriented subject matter aligns with most of the 23-year-old’s common rap themes, his newest project sees him broach new sonic terrain outside his expected domain of thumping trap beats. “Bow Wow” contains instrumental elements of Early Aughts Southern hip-hop while “Boss Blues” features Houston’s Sauce Walka over a soulful beat. There’s also overt joy when he describes how the 03 Greedo-assisted West Coast banger “House Call” came to fruition. “Especially in the streets, Greedo a somebody, so the fact he was showing me love was just crazy,” Quin says. “He told me to link with him in Houston. I drove down there literally the same day. We just made it happen from there. He raps just like me as far as how long it can take him to do a song. Once we both got on the song, it probably took 20 minutes total for our song to be done.”

“Hard Times,” an addictive cut where Quin reflects on coming up from difficult circumstances over a solemn piano sample, once again shows his melodic and slower tempo tracks can rival, if not surpass, the hard-hitting energy found on some of his more popular songs. Overall, the Northeast Austin representative’s third EMPIRE-distributed release demonstrates a concerted effort to prove he’s capable of making more than just trap music. “I feel like they [try] to put me in a pocket as if I'm not a real artist,” he says. “I don't just make fuckin’ Texas drill. I don't just rap like everybody in Texas. I can actually make melodic songs. I can make songs for women. I can do whatever I want to do.

“I like being lyrical. I grew up on [Lil] Wayne. I’ll talk about [trap-related matter] because that’s where we come from, but realistically, whatever I'm talking about, I'm gonna make sure I have bars in there. A lot of these [trap artists] ain’t even smart enough to put metaphors together. They don’t even know what similes and stuff are. That's why I don’t like getting called a trap artist.”

“Really still in ’24, I brought Kobe back”

Despite first breaking out last decade and a lack of hip-hop infrastructure locally, Quin NFN surprisingly still lives in Austin. He regularly shouts out his part of town, nicknamed “Da 4,” across his discography. “I love Austin because it’s not a horrible city,” he says after a press run in New York City. “You can come out here and raise your kids. I got three kids. It ain't too hood. It ain't too messed up. It’s got sides, but you can still live life and have fun in Austin.

“I go to other places and it just makes me appreciate Austin more.”

The self-proclaimed “real quiet, real introvert” MC admits refraining from key industry activities, such as networking, probably held him back. “I feel like I need to not move to another city, but I definitely need to go spend a couple months in each major city as far as L.A., Atlanta, places like that,” he says. “I’d rather stay in Austin, but I need to get out and network in other cities.

“Networking is a key thing to go to the next level, and it’s not too many people out here that made it in the rap scene for me to get any game from them, any connections.”

But some may argue Quin NFN himself can do more for the local scene in terms of collaborating with other artists. Grace Sorensen’s uncredited background vocals on the 2022 single “Walk the Line” represent the last time an Austin artist appeared on one of his songs. Though he's provided verses for Austin peers such as Kydd Jones and ROG Tree in recent years, there’s zero credited features from Austin artists across the four solo projects he’s released since 2019.

“I be lacking on knowing certain Austin artists, and I feel like if I knew more, I would work with more,” he admits. “I only know the people from my side of town, and most of them be hating on me. That's why you won’t see me work with too many, especially male, artists out of Austin.”

Still, he’s proud of his hometown’s scene and sees his influence on Austin hip-hop’s progression in a different way. “We got way more people coming out of Austin as far as hip-hop, more people that I knew since I was a kid, doing numbers, trying to do stuff,” he says. “I definitely feel like I had a big influence because there’s people I went to school with that [were] playing basketball, never rapped in their life [and now] they’re rapping.” He predicts someone will eventually blow up, but implores local rap stakeholders to support those building traction rather than saturating the scene by trying to selfishly latch onto someone else’s momentum.

“If somebody is talented, get behind them,” he advises. “Don't try to make music because they are making music. Get behind them and push their music so we can shed light on the city in a positive way.”

NFN: No Friends Needed

With a view toward the next 12 months, NFN Entertainment’s founder mentions a desire to launch his sole artist, Oshay NFN. Oshay’s only offering, a 2023 track titled “HUU HUU,” currently counts 165,000 views on Quin’s YouTube page. More than anything, he’s most proud of what he overcame healthwise to once again record music with no restrictions.

“I feel like that year I took off, I owe my fans. I really do feel like I owe them. I'm trying to drop like how I used to.

“That [situation] put me in a crazy spot. It [feels] like I'm back to old me. It just feels so good to be dropping music and seeing the reactions my fans give me.”