Nav

Navraj Singh Goraya (born November 3, 1989), known professionally as Nav, is a Canadian rapper, singer, songwriter, and record producer.

Navraj Singh Goraya was born on November 3, 1989, in Toronto, Ontario, into an immigrant Punjabi Jat Sikh family, from Punjab, India.

He was raised in the Rexdale neighbourhood.

His mother was involved in computer manufacturing and his father operated a forklift.

Nav first became interested in music after his mother bought him a boombox in the third grade.

His uncle was also a popular Punjabi singer in India and brought him to a studio.

He began making mash-ups in high school and producing beats for local underground Toronto artists, and became popular on SoundCloud.

Nav first started producing using Sony's ACID Pro software.

He attended West Humber Junior Middle School and then later attended Thistletown Collegiate Institute for his high school education and had to spend an additional year to graduate.

Following high school, he attended and graduated from Metalworks Institute in Mississauga, Ontario in 2010 with a diploma in Audio Production and Engineering.

Nav also mentions that he briefly worked as an Apprentice in the Electrical Industry as an Electrician before quitting to pursue his music career full time.

Nav originally began his career as a producer, co-producing fellow Canadian rapper Drake's single, "Back to Back", in 2015.

On July 29, 2015, fellow Canadian rapper and singer Drake released the single "Back to Back", which Nav helped co-produce.

On September 4, 2015, Nav released one of his earliest singles on SoundCloud and YouTube, "Take Me Simple", which has accumulated over eighteen million listens.

He released the single "Ten Toes Down" (abbreviated as "TTD" on streaming services) on SoundCloud and YouTube on December 15, 2015.

He then gained mainstream attention in 2016 when his song "Myself" went viral on SoundCloud.

Nav is signed to Canadian singer the Weeknd's record label XO and its parent label, Republic Records, and is managed by XO managers Amir "Cash" Esmailian and Wassim "Sal" Slaiby.

In 2016, another one of his SoundCloud and YouTube-exclusive singles, "The Man", was played on Drake's OVO Sound Radio.

On January 12, 2016, Nav released the single "Myself" on SoundCloud and YouTube, which quickly became his biggest song at the time, earning him numerous cosigns, including one from American model and internet personality Kylie Jenner.

On June 4, 2016, he released the single "Up" on SoundCloud and YouTube.

Following the popularity of the singles, he was signed to XO and Republic Records, after being called by his now-manager Amir "Cash" Esmailian.

On September 2, 2016, Nav was featured on and solely produced the single "Beibs in the Trap" by Travis Scott, as part of the latter's second studio album, Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight, in which the song reached number 90 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and was eventually certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) after selling over two million copies.

On December 24, 2016, American record producer Metro Boomin, who helped produce "Up", took to Twitter to announce that he and Nav would be releasing a collaborative project in 2017.

In 2017, Nav released his self-titled debut mixtape and his collaborative mixtape with Metro Boomin, Perfect Timing.

On February 15, 2017, Nav released his debut single, "Some Way" featuring the Weeknd, who is his label boss from XO, as the lead single from his self-titled debut mixtape, which was released exactly nine days later.

Exactly, one week after the release of the single, Nav tweeted that his collaborative mixtape with Metro Boomin would be titled Perfect Timing.

"Myself" was chosen as the second and final single from Nav's self-titled mixtape as it was sent to rhythmic contemporary radio on April 11, 2017.

On July 14, 2017, Nav and Metro Boomin released "Perfect Timing (Intro)" and "Call Me", the dual lead singles of Perfect Timing, which was released exactly a week later.

On November 7, 2017, Nav was featured on the single "Bali" by Canadian hip hop duo 88Glam, which consisted of rappers and now-former XO signees Derek Wise and 88Camino before the duo split in late 2022, as part of the duo's self-titled debut mixtape.

Three days later, he released the single "Wanted You" featuring Lil Uzi Vert, which became his first single as a lead artist, as well as a credited artist, to chart on the Billboard Hot 100, reaching number 64.

He released his debut studio album, Reckless, in 2018.

In February 2018, Nav received a Juno Award nomination for Breakthrough Artist of the Year at the Juno Awards of 2018.

He then released his second studio album, Bad Habits (2019), which debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200.

In 2020, Nav released his highest-charting song as a lead artist, "Turks", with Gunna featuring Travis Scott, which debuted and peaked at number 17 on the Billboard Hot 100.

It serves as the lead single to his third studio album, Good Intentions (2020), which was released later and then became his second number-one album on the US Billboard 200.

Soon, he released its deluxe edition titled Brown Boy 2 (2020), which is also a sequel of his unofficial EP titled Brown Boy (2019), which Cash published on Audiomack a week before Bad Habits.

He then earned his highest-charting song in total from his feature on Internet Money, Gunna, and Don Toliver's single, "Lemonade", which eventually reached at number six on the Hot 100.

He released his commercial mixtape, Emergency Tsunami, in late 2020.

Nav released his fourth studio album, Demons Protected by Angels, in fall 2022.

He is set to release his third commercial mixtape, Nav2, a sequel to his self-titled project, sometime in 2024.