Nathaniel S. Hardy Jr.

Hardy was born in Baltimore, Maryland, United States.

He attended Cherry Hill Junior High School (P.S. #180), and started out as a member of the school's marching band while growing up in the "Projects" of Cherry Hill. He joined the band in the seventh grade to keep out of trouble when his brother Gershwin brought home a trombone; he then decided to take music class. His music teacher Mr. Keenan suggested that he play the "Bass Cello". Upon playing the Bass Cello, Hardy decided it was to troublesome to carry the cello home for practice and switched over to playing trombone alongside his brother. Hardy continued to play the trombone until the ninth grade under the direction on his new music teacher Miss Catherine Snyder. Once while watching neighborhood friends play instruments, he noticed his brother was acting like he was playing an organ his mother had bought, while the other members were actually performing on his brother's friend Weldon Harris' porch, when they all stopped playing everyone knew that his brother was faking it. That is when Hardy decided to learn to how to play the keyboard. He worked numerous jobs saving up money to buy both music and stereo equipment. He taught himself how to play by learning the keys and reading books and practicing on his grandmother's old standup piano.

In 1980, Hardy was approached by a childhood friend Thomas Lee Brown, III, and later a high school friend Terrance Balfour (after hearing Hardy sing in the Gym shower) to front a local band that he started called "Savior Faire". The band was signed to RCA Records with Hardy as lead vocalist. Hardy and Balfour later wrote for artists such as Kurtis Blow, Run-DMC, and other rap acts from some contacts that Brown knew in New York. After less than three years with RCA, the band was dropped by the label for failing to reach 500,000 units in sales and contract disputes. Hardy was able to maintain all rights to his music since he was the only one that did not spend any money, when he was able to give back the advance that the record company had fronted him. In 1980, Nathaniel (at the age of fifteen) auditioned at New York's "Apollo Theater" for Chic to be a keyboardist "Session Musician" for Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards. Hardy was then invited to join a number of Chic session recordings with Deborah Harry, Carly Simon, and on Madonna's Like a Virgin album, which was considered a re-united Chic, featuring band members Bernard Edwards, Nile Rodgers, Tony Thompson, and Robert Sabino; also while in the U.S. Navy he continued to write music with Bobby Brown, Teddy Riley, The Basement Boys, and Crystal Waters. In late 2008, Hardy started using the name The Nathaniel Hardy Project.

• "Sucker M.C.'s" – Run-DMC Nathaniel S. Hardy, Jr. and Terrance Balfour (1983)
• "Gypsy Woman" – Crystal Waters (1991)
• "Two Can Play That Game" – Bobby Brown (1994)
• "Nothing Last Forever!" – The Nathaniel Hardy Project (2005)
• "I Love You More!" – The Nathaniel Hardy Project (2006)
• "Shut the Hell Up!" – The Nathaniel Hardy Project (2008)
• "Ahhhh Yeah!!!" – The Nathaniel Hardy Project (feat. Faith R. Hardy-Molina) (2010)
• "I Got the Boom, Boom, Boom!" – The Nathaniel Hardy Project (2012)
• "I Have You (I My Life!)" – The Nathaniel Hardy Project (2015)
• "The Craziest By Far!!!" – The Nathaniel Hardy Project (2015)
• "Crazy!" – The Nathaniel Hardy Project (2015)
• "Moonlight in Baltimore" – The Nathaniel Hardy Project (2016)
• "Bounced Back (Life Is Good!)" – The Nathaniel Hardy Project (2018)
• "When Tomorrow Comes!" – The Nathaniel Hardy Project (2018)
• "Mind Going Crazy!" – TizzleBangerz (feat. The Nathaniel Hardy Project) (2019)
• "Pandemic Nation 2020" - The Nathaniel Hardy Project (2020)
• "Pandemic Nation 2020 (Remix)" - The Nathaniel Hardy Project (2020)

• Chic (band) biography at Billboard Magazine
• Chic (band) biography at Rolling Stone Magazine
• "Nathaniel S. Hardy, Jr. | Album Discography". AllMusic. Retrieved January 23, 2021.