Nef the Pharaoh

“I was four years old,” Nef the Pharaoh remembers. “I did the Vallejo High School talent show and I won first place. I wasn’t even able to attend high school, I was in preschool. I said a rap, and I got a standing ovation. I got front page on the Vallejo Times-Herald newspaper in 1999.” Not many people can claim such an early start to their rap career, but Nef the Pharaoh is an outlier by almost any measure. The 20-year-old Vallejo native is fresh off of his self-titled EP, which was issued through E-40’s Sick Wid It Records. That tape spawned a hit in “Big Tymin,” a Cash Money-nodding anthem that became a favorite with both critics and fans.