ONE VOICE Mak Nova sees rap and hip hop as a vehicle to express her own originality in its purest form. Photo: Zsolt Fekete
Fun, sexy, sensual, deep, bright and refreshingly authentic—a Mak Nova show is something to experience. There isn’t a dull moment as she grabs her crotch and stares straight into the crowd, flipping her braids and turning her backside to the crowd to twerk while she sings, “Damn, I like your sexy mouth.”
“Nova is a powerhouse. She is driven and her confidence shows through in her performance and her music,” says local singer and producer Andy Pankakes, who was a roadie for Mak Nova at the Joshua Tree Music Festival in May 2024. “She’s a very energetic performer but she’s also happy and sensitive as well. She has a vulnerability, you know, that she’s brave enough to share.”
Mak Nova is bringing all this energy to a big venue this Saturday, playing at UCSC’s Quarry Amphitheater, which can accommodate a crowd of 2,600. Even bigger is the headlining act: Parliament Funkadelic, featuring George Clinton—a truly original musician who broke ground with his P-funk sound, mixing classic funk rhythms with elements of jazz, rock, pop, classical and gospel,.
Nova came into 2025 fully loaded with creative ideas and is getting ready to drop her debut full-length. Her quick rise to the music scene didn’t happen without putting in the work.
“I’ve been fully consumed by the new album,” she says. “If I’m not making music, I’m watching a music documentary. I’m so one-track. I hope that when I come up for air, I’ll have other pastimes and hobbies.”
Nova was a late bloomer in the music scene. She was born in LA but grew up in Sonoma. At first, Nova’s focus was on theatre and dance. Upon landing in Santa Cruz, she auditioned and joined the Evocation Sacred Art Troupe. In her first performance, Nova says she “had the most lucid experience of her life…a part of me had died on stage and I had to figure out how to re-emerge as a new being. I came out of it, like, who I am now, strong and content and more tuned into myself.”
It wasn’t until 2019 that she started evolving from playing songs on guitar to producing tracks on keyboard with Logic, a widely used production software. Her first performance as a rapper was at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center in an all-women showcase featuring Gina René and Tammi Brown, a local jazz and soul singer who passed away this month. It was at a dance class that she met Congo-born guitarist and singer Elie Mabanza. He invited her to play with him and some other local musicians.
“We hit it off, and he kept inviting me to jam,” Nova says. Mabanza helped Nova produce and form her own sound, bringing musicians together for her live band. She didn’t have any recordings out at the time, and having a band was a way to get her music heard. First she played with the Kings, then the Homies.
“It’s easy to work with her,” Mabanza says. “We can change things easily when it’s not working. It takes time to be on that level. Because a lot of people are attached to things they have done.”
As a female rapper and producer, Nova is inspired by the simplicity of rap and hip hop as a vehicle to express her own originality in its purest form—a beat and a voice—and adding instrumental embellishments after the essential story is told.
“Our core being is as storytellers. And we’re still doing that. I love that I get to be a part of it. It feels important for me to honor the roots of the genre. That’s been my big intention,” Nova explains. “For me at the core, that’s being truthful—and poetically telling a damn good story.”
Getting into the creation of the new album, Nova realized she didn’t have a clear vision. “I had the mentality of a band. I had to make the transition in real time. I can’t say the chorus like ten times in a rap song, like I could with a jam band,” she says. “The beats are first now, and it used to be the band was first. It’s basically setting a foundation for myself.”
On the new album, Mak Nova steps up her game, doing all the backup vocals. “Recording tracks for my album was intense work,” she says.
Nova wants people to hear her songs and unflinchingly classify her as “a rapper doing hip hop.” Her songs should be able to follow a Kendrick Lamar track or to be the transition to, say, a Doja Cat cut, she says. Part of redefining her sound has been redefining her band and its place in her music. “I lost my nine-piece band to get to where I am today. There’s only Elie from the old band. He really is the core of my sound. It’s like its own universe. It’s an alternative reality,” Nova explains.
At the April 26 show, Mak Nova will debut music from the upcoming 10-track album, due for release later this year. The band includes Mabanza on guitar, Dan Robbins on bass, Frankie Matson on backup vocals, Rowan Graves on drums and guest artist Robert Jackson on keys.
Bringing in new collaborators in addition to Mabanza and videographer/photographer/producer Zsolt Fekete was essential. Nova sought out Oakland producer Stephen Iwebema and San Jose–based sound engineer Deegan Adams—who is no lightweight, having worked with the likes of E-40, Snoop Dogg, Too Short and Chamillionaire.
When I ask her about where she gets inspiration musically, she says, “rap music is not what I listen to. I like R&B and neo soul. I listen exclusively to Cleo Sol. Like all day, every day—she makes me religious,” she proclaims. “I have also been into Megan Thee Stallion; she’s like a universal alter ego,” Nova says.
Another central figure and mentor has been Genoa Brown, who previously worked with Nova, doing backing vocals on recorded songs and live shows. Brown is a local music coach and co-owner and creative director at Everyone’s Music School in Santa Cruz. “I went to her when I started the album…I knew it was going to be a lot of work. It was like a spiritual journey…so much personal growth. She gave me tools that I could work with for the rest of my life,” Nova says.
Brown believed Nova should do her own singing: “She looked right into my soul and told me what I needed to hear that I wasn’t ready to accept. Now I can go anywhere in the world and record my backing vocals with confidence.”
Labels are not for her, says Nova. “I am a spiritual being having a human experience. My spirit is not a man or woman, it’s a being and it’s limitless. I support my queer community and people being whoever the fuck they want to be. Love who you want. Wear what you want. And hopefully society can grow up and find a compassionate way to integrate the full spectrum of human expression into society,” Nova says.
Mak Nova will open for Parliament Funkadelic with George Clinton on April 26 at the Quarry Amphitheater on the UCSC campus. Doors open at 6pm with DJ Nola Cruz; the show begins at 7pm. Tickets $59–$118.21. To book Mak Nova, email mu***@gm***.com.
