The intersection between acting and rapping is increasingly common. Tupac, A$AP Rocky, Queen Latifah, and Will Smith famously carved out strong Hollywood careers for themselves. Additionally, actors like Idris Elba and Mahershala Ali notably tinkered around with hip-hop before becoming fixtures in film. Even Mark Wahlberg was Marky Mark before he broke out in movies like Boogie Nights. But there are some actors you wouldn’t imagine rapping in a million years. Matt Damon is one of those people.
However, as part of his Get Blue initiative with Water.org to help end the global water crisis, he has become The Nomad. In a promo video with star producer Hit-Boy, The Bourne Identity actor dropped some clunky, awkward bars about helping the environment. In between, Damon explains the crucial disparity in water today.
“2 billion people don’t have access to clean water. It’s 1 in 4 human beings,” Matt Damon explained. “Everybody, by just going about their everyday life, if they’re interacting with a Get Blue product, they’re making a donation to Water.org. So if you get a blue matcha or a blue sweatshirt, some of those proceeds are going to go to the work that we’re doing. I figured if I rap as The Nomad, that might be a way to kind of connect with the culture.”
Admittedly, ‘Nomad’ was just Damon spelled backward, but he came to the studio to get Hit-Boy to help. All he had was the mock-up of an album cover… even though he struggled to rap on just one of the beats.
Matt Damon Tries His Hand at Rapping as ‘The Nomad’
In a conversation with The Hollywood Reporter, Damon admitted that the whole experience was a little awkward. However, that was ultimately the point: to connect with people due to the absolute absurdity of the concept.
“Music and humor are two of the best ways to cut through in culture,” Matt Damon told the outlet. “So obviously, those are two places that we’re, that we’re trying to focus on. The Nomad thing was just a silly idea that we all agreed was silly enough that it might actually work and might get a little attention, and it’s all about just again trying to find these different access points for people to just understand that this is a problem.”
Additionally, Matt Damon felt like it was hard to get people to truly understand how crucial the issue of water is today. Because there’s a closer understanding with something like AIDS or cancer, people latch on closer. So if you can’t engage with the immediate pathos, try to loop them in with something sillier.
“How do we connect at the grassroots level with people? Because once people know about it, they really want to help,” Matt Damon added. “Once people realize a million kids are dying every year from things that are totally preventable, they say, ‘Well, what can I do?’ And so this is an attempt at an answer to that.”
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