Catching Up with Nathanial Young

    ‘Never give up’ is an expression that you can find on all of Nathanial Young’s social media profiles. When I last spoke to him in October 2024, I took note of his persistence and positivity when it came to music. He has spent a solid portion of his life perfecting his craft, and now he’s taken to social media to share it with the world in the form of digital busking under the username @nathanialpov.

    Cross-platform, his profiles have amassed nearly 300,000 followers as people are drawn in by the captivating location changes of his day-to-day life soundtracked to his improvisational saxophone playing, all filmed from his point of view through Meta glasses. It’s a significant change from our last interview, and I was eager to hear about how this new era has impacted him.

    He tells me he created the @nathanialpov Instagram account during a time of difficulty. Struggling both financially and with inactive music projects, Nathanial needed something new to help propel him forward. “I wanted to quit, and so this account was kind of like a last-ditch effort to get something going for myself to try to, like, dig myself out of this hole. Which it is, it has been doing that, which is pretty cool.”

    In the beginning, reviews were mixed about Nathanial’s content, specifically within the music community. “Yeah, just a lot of people who thought I was being disrespectful towards the music and using a gimmick... The glasses as a gimmick, you know, the POV sort of gimmick to sort of meme-ify the music, and that’s something that I was pretty conscious about when I started.” Like many creators, though, he had to experiment with different content styles until he found something that caught the attention of those scrolling by. Pivoting from his original point of view voiceover approach, he found luck in letting the saxophone speak for itself, and adds that the @nathanialpov project has been received very well since.

    But with big changes come new challenges, and Nathanial is open with me about the difficulties of learning to manage himself, balancing life and content, maintaining sobriety, trying to remain professional, and on top of it all, the anxiety that comes with a sudden boost of attention. “I started getting really stressed out, and I was like, ‘What the hell did I expect to happen? I’m posting like a psychopath, I’m doing it all the time, I’m putting so much effort into it, did I expect myself to fail?’ I don’t know… I think I’m still continuously stressed out on a daily basis. It’s been, like, 6 months of me very slowly losing hair and increasing my screentime basically.” Despite the pressure, Nathanial says he’s up for the challenge.

    Much of this new project has been rewarding for Nathanial. He echoes the sentiment of internal and external validation that he shared with me last October, only now the external validation is amplified due to the number of people responding to his work. Specifically, he values the special connection he has with his followers and is happy to perform one-on-one concerts for them and answer questions and DMs as often as he can. When asked about the creative and heartfelt comments he receives, he answers, “Yeah, I think that’s super special. It feels like a big responsibility because that’s not only based in what they’re hearing, but it’s based in the full picture of what I’m communicating to people. It’s based in the idea of not giving up.”

    His supporters have also been a great help in finding opportunities, and he tells me a story of a recent trip to New York City during which one of them helped him book a gig in Manhattan, a significant difference from his experience while living there years prior. “Everyone was vibing, and I actually got paid, which was crazy ‘cause I was just going to New York to film content and have a vacation. So that was, you know, insane… I lived in New York forever, and I could never book a show. But now here I am in LA, and some random person books it for me, and then I just actually have strangers come on the East Coast.”

    Along with growing on social media, he’s evolved as a musician. Though practicing and playing music are still a safe space for him, he notes that that space has been drastically altered by allowing more spectators in on the process. His two recently released projects, HARVEST and Double Shift, reflect that change. HARVEST, which Nathanial describes as more obscure and avant-garde, was recorded with his friend, Branden Brown, inside a large storm drain in Griffith Park, and you can watch that process on Nathanial’s social media accounts. The same can be said for Double Shift, his solo EP, which was recorded in a hallway next to the restaurant after working a double shift. In both cases, Nathanial creatively uses the viral video recordings of these sessions from his glasses as the album or EP rollout.

    Though he has considered intertwining his other musical interests with @nathanialpov, these days, he’s mainly focusing on the saxophone. “I find so much celebration in the mobility of the saxophone that I just kept sort of doing that and traveling and using it to travel and stuff, but I think now the main difference is that I just have more confidence about what I’m making, just ‘cause I have an audience of people.” The response from his audience to his saxophone playing is something that surprised him about this new era. “I didn’t even think that many people liked the saxophone, and that’s coming from a guy who has studied the saxophone for, like, 20 years. I didn’t even know people liked it like that, which is a very happy surprise.”

    As for the future, Nathanial shares that his goal of landing a publishing deal is still a priority, and that he’d be interested in getting an artist deal as a saxophone artist. He also has plans to travel to Europe for a few weeks in September, specifically to London, Norway, France, Copenhagen, and Lisbon. As for upcoming releases, he says, “I have a bunch of projects… I have, like, five solo albums, and it’s just about rolling them out.” So be sure to keep an eye out for those.

    Nathanial’s dedication to music remains unwavering, and I think that’s the most important takeaway from looking at his journey. ‘Never give up’ isn’t just an encouraging caption or theme, but it’s something he truly lives by. His ability to change course and adapt to make things work is an important skill, one that I think will take him very far. I’m excited to see what the future holds for Nathanial and his projects, and if you want to follow along, you can find him on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. You can also check out his Spotify or Soundcloud, as well as his Bandcamp.