The post Nadia Nakai & Toss on ‘Do’s & Don’ts’: The Real Story Behind the EP and Their Relationship appeared first on SA Hip Hop Mag.
In a game that thrives on chemistry, few pairings have captured the moment quite like Nadia Nakai and Toss. Fresh off a packed listening session and riding the wave of their joint EP Do’s and Don’ts, the two sit down with SA Hip Hop Mag to unpack the three-day creative sprint that birthed the project, the personal stories woven into tracks like “Toxic” and “Choose Me,” and what it means to build something real — both in the studio and beyond it.
From kasi-rap roots to sensual storytelling, the hottest couple in the game pull back the curtain on their process, their partnership, and why this project felt necessary right now.
The Cool: What’s up, ladies and gentlemen? Today we have a really beautiful one. We’ve got the hottest couple in the game. How are you doing?
Toss: What’s up, bro?
The Cool: This comes at the back of your listening session, which is really dope. How are you guys feeling about it?
Nadia Nakai: Excited. It was really nice to see everybody take the time to come out, support us, listen to the actual project. It seemed like everybody enjoyed every song, which was nice.
Toss: I felt great. The reception was nice. Seeing all the familiar faces was a beautiful thing and I enjoyed myself.
The Cool: Dope. Nadia, this is our second sit-down. The last one was right after Naked came out. Where are you mentally and emotionally right now?
Nadia Nakai: I’m happy. I feel good. I feel light. I feel experimental. I generally just feel good.
The Cool: This project is the third in your personal catalogue, right? Your third full-on project?
Nadia Nakai: It’s the third EP, yes.
Toss: We’re both on our third. That’s great.
The Cool: How do you feel about the game right now, Nadia? Your Shizniz was 2013, Amantombazane 2014 and Ice Prince was 2015… You’ve been hot longer than ten summers.
Nadia Nakai: Fourteen years. Longevity is what every artist wants — to stay in the game and not just be a short stint that everyone forgets. It takes a lot of work to stay on top of mind. With this specific project I feel like the industry needed it. Something was missing and the way we tackled it was really cool.
The Cool: Toss, I haven’t heard Nadia spit full-on like that in a long time. Why did it take Reason to convince her to spit the way she does on that chorus on Ben’thini?
Toss: It wasn’t me — it was Reason. Shout-out to Reason. I messed with it because she came into my world for a bit and she killed it in a crazy way.
The Cool: You really showed your hip-hop side on this project. What are your hip-hop credentials?
Toss: I grew up on kasi rap — people like Siya Shezi, Pro Kid, the original Emtee (not Roll Up Emtee). Whenever I can show that side of me I reference those guys and try to come off like them. I enjoy doing that.
The Cool: Both of you were really showing off. How did Ben’thini come about?
Nadia Nakai: We actually started with Reason because we wanted to work on a song with Dos Anas. He was a huge inspiration. Initially we thought it would just be one song. While we were in the studio Reason said, “You guys should do a project — it doesn’t make sense to just do one thing.” I called Toss, told him what was happening and asked if he was down. He’s a busy man so I asked for three days. He said yes. We locked in those three days and did the whole project.
The Cool: This was done over three days?
Nadia Nakai: Essentially, yes. Excluding features and tweaking, majority of the songs were done in three days. We rented a house in Bryanston and worked till the early hours. One of the days was even his birthday.
The Cool: Did you work on the project before or after the music video?
Nadia Nakai: We did the project in July. The music video came out in February for Valentine’s Day.
The Cool: Was it a difficult decision to fuse piano and hip-hop?
Toss: Not really. I have history in hip-hop. I’m a rapper at the core. Braga’s creativity is out of this world and I knew it would push me. I love challenges.
The Cool: Choose Me is the second song — such a sexual song. How much of that is imitating life? Walk me through the thinking around it.
Nadia Nakai: The way I imagined the EP is as a story. Ben’thini is us meeting at the club and vibing. Choose Me is the first time you have a sexual situation. There wasn’t a lot of premeditated thought — it just developed that way once we were in the creative space.
The Cool: It’s a visualizer, right? No lip-syncing.
Nadia Nakai: Yes.
The Cool: A lot of people see you, Toss, as a sex symbol — Umlando and all of that. Nadia, you had to shake that perception around Naked. How does that fuse into a song like Choose Me?
Toss: I don’t think of myself as a sex symbol. I’ve known I have a nice body since high school, even primary school. On the song it just happened through the energy in the studio. I imagined the real thing, talking to a real person about it — and she was right next to me. It was pure energy in the room.
The Cool: Blind is clearly inspired by Tamia’s “Into You.” Was that difficult — leaning on such a generational song?
Toss: No pressure at all. I knew the song, but when the beat was made I wasn’t thinking about it. I just had to do my thing and kill it. It was the first song we did. I freestyled the first part and it led to what it is now.
Nadia Nakai: I’m a big fan of that era of R&B and of Tamia, but it wasn’t a big factor when we worked on the song. Even without the reference it would still have been powerful. Shout-out to Tamia.
The Cool: The numbers are looking really good — you’re heading toward a million streams.
Nadia Nakai: Everything just fell into place. Nothing was premeditated other than “let’s go to the studio for these three days.” It’s always been easy to be around him and work with him.
The Cool: The rollout reminds me of the Clipse rollout with Pusha T. It feels thought-through, even though you’re saying a lot of it was organic.
Nadia Nakai: That’s why I’m saying the industry needed us. This is the blueprint for how future music can be rolled out. Music alone isn’t enough — everything else matters. We have great music and a great rollout.
The Cool: Who decided on the title Do’s and Don’ts? What was the other name you considered?
Nadia Nakai: Reason wanted “Dos Cabras” — Spanish for “two goats” or “two gods.” I felt it was too hip-hop, too much “two heavyweights.” Do’s and Don’ts is based on relationship do’s and don’ts. There’s a level of submission a woman has when she’s in love and a level of leading a man has. That’s how the project felt — vulnerability, sensitivity and strength, not just “we’re both kings.”
The Cool: Are we getting a full music video for Blind?
Nadia Nakai: Definitely. There’s a visualizer already, but there’ll be a proper music video. I’d love to have Uncle Susannah in it — she came through beautifully on the singing.
The Cool: Toxic is so relatable. How much of your own experiences did you tap into?
Toss: We had a conversation that we had to tap into real life. Toxic is what I’ve experienced. The way she was speaking back at me felt real. It triggered a lot of emotions. It’s a movie that people can relate to because we’ve both been through it.
Nadia Nakai: To be honest it was my least favourite song at first because of the structure — I wanted a chorus and it felt less melodic. In retrospect it’s very powerful because so many people resonate with that toxicity. I never want to speak to my man the way I speak on that song, but I’ve experienced it. Relationships have the don’ts too.
The Cool: It really is the epitome of the whole “do’s and don’ts” concept.
Nadia Nakai: Exactly.
The Cool: Would Toxic get a visual?
Nadia Nakai: I don’t think so… but we need one. A lot of people have been hitting me up about it. It’s giving Trapped in the Closet.
The Cool: Moving on to Chomi. How important is friendship in a relationship?
Nadia Nakai: Extremely important. If I’m intimate with you and sharing a life, keeping things from you is weird. I want to get drunk with my partner, go to the club, travel, do serious things together. I don’t want to find that in someone else. Friendship makes the relationship special — that’s my person in every way.
The Cool: You’ve spoken before about your mom warning you about having too many friends. How has that shifted now that your man is your main person?
Nadia Nakai: Friends have decreased. The people I trust have decreased. I don’t tell everybody what’s going on anymore. The main friend — the main chomi — better be my man. If anything is going wrong, the person I’m running to is him. Friends can sometimes orchestrate the downfall of a relationship because they’re not in it with you. Values change as you grow older.
The Cool: Toss, how do you navigate friendships, especially with females, while in a relationship?
Toss: I live a different life and I’m surrounded by females a lot. When my woman is in my life she’s number one — no debate. She has to understand there are friends who have been there. It doesn’t mean they’re taking her place. What happens between me and her stays between us. My friends need to respect the person I’m with, and vice versa. Friendship in a relationship is highly important. I don’t want to run to my friends when I’m going through something — she must be my safe place. I have to be able to be the real me with her.
The Cool: At the listening session you said the day you met Nadia you were already her favourite person. What informed that?
Nadia Nakai: Energy. His spirit, his aura — it’s calming, it feels safe and genuine. I’d known his name for a long time and already saw him as a superstar, but he never made me feel small. He’s aware of who he is and the impact he has, but he doesn’t make people feel less around him. Off that energy alone I was like, “He’s my favourite person.”
The Cool: Where did you guys meet?
Nadia Nakai: In the club. I can’t even remember exactly where.
The Cool: How did that land with you, Toss — someone you’ve just met calling you her favourite person?
Toss: It was crazy. I’ve always been a fan of Braga. I was chilling at home, saw the mention on my stories and was like, “Prager just said I’m her favourite person?” It was heartwarming. It made me want to get closer to her. I wanted to know more about how she could decide that on the first meeting. To be honest I was drunk that day so I don’t remember much, but I remember the feeling.
The Cool: Did you become friends first before exploring more?
Nadia Nakai: Yes, definitely. About a year. When we did the music video in February we had already been friends for a while — since around December 2023 / beginning of 2024.
The Cool: How did you keep it under wraps for so long?
Nadia Nakai: People didn’t mind their business… and we didn’t want blogs in our business. I get so much anxiety when podcasts or blogs mention my name. There’s so much that can be said or weaponised against me. Even when we dropped the Valentine’s video there was a lot of discourse. I was worried I had spoiled his job, but he was worried about me.
The Cool: Are you finding the public conversation around you guys more positive now?
Nadia Nakai: Yes. The first time the conversation happened I said on Altitude Podcast that it was a test. The country saw me in a certain way and I wanted people to prepare for the fact that I could get into a relationship again. Watching how the comments have evolved shows the maturity of our audience. They’re rooting for us now. I hardly see negative comments.
The Cool: Are you guys happy?
Nadia & Toss: Yes.
The Cool: Top three favourite songs on the EP and why?
Toss:
1. Blind — it sums up the whole day between her and me.
2. Told Me — mainly because of the verse at the end. That’s her writing a letter to me: “Be careful of the people in your mentions… I pray for you more than I pray for me… You’ve got a heart of gold…”
3. Choose Me — I want to travel with her overseas. First stops: Paris (fashion) and Thailand (tropical).
Nadia Nakai:
1. Blind — it really encompasses the love of a relationship. “I want your last name and your babies…”
2. Gets Gets — I love that song so much and I’m surprised more people aren’t saying the same.
3. Choose Me.
It changes though — Toxic is starting to grow on me, and I love Bemtee.
The Cool: Ben’thini is the statement song for me — guns blazing. Who produced the project?
Nadia Nakai: 808x, Gobi Beast, H0PEMASTA and Lee Global
The Cool: Last word on Do’s and Don’ts?
Nadia Nakai: Stream Do’s and Don’ts. It’s an amazing project. Anybody can resonate with it — whether you’re in a relationship or not. You can reflect on past relationships, friendships or family dynamics. It’s well-rounded and the music is great.
Toss: She said it all. It’s a beautiful project that came from everybody’s heart. Just go listen and tell us how you feel.
The Cool: Congratulations once again. Blind’s numbers look really dope — 250k+ on the first day is a big deal. Proud of you guys.
Nadia & Toss: Thank you so much for having us.
The post Nadia Nakai & Toss on ‘Do’s & Don’ts’: The Real Story Behind the EP and Their Relationship appeared first on SA Hip Hop Mag.
The post Nadia Nakai & Toss on ‘Do’s & Don’ts’: The Real Story Behind the EP and Their Relationship appeared first on SA Hip Hop Mag.
In a game that thrives on chemistry, few pairings have captured the moment quite like Nadia Nakai and Toss. Fresh off a packed listening session and riding the wave of their joint EP Do’s and Don’ts, the two sit down with SA Hip Hop Mag to unpack the three-day creative sprint that birthed the project, …
The post Nadia Nakai & Toss on ‘Do’s & Don’ts’: The Real Story Behind the EP and Their Relationship appeared first on SA Hip Hop Mag. Read More
