RI INTERVIEW

Birsha: alright i guess the best place to start is, why was the album called “my love cardinal”Ri:So my boy and I wanted to make an album in 24 hours and in order to make it easier to construct, we had to come up with a theme and at the time I was in like the worst mental health spot of my fucking life so I wanted to just explore the 7 cardinal sins as song topics and see how that translatedBirsha: which of the 7 cardinal sins do you struggle with the most?Ri: Pride for sureBirsha:Do you think that affects the way you make music?Ri. I think it makes the process take forever because I’m so particular and just need it to be so good. It also helps me though because when I’m making music collaboratively with other artists my pride kinda keeps me sharp. I love when I’m a feature on a track. I think those tend to be my best verses tbhBirsha: do you think that there’s a difference between having pride in yourself and having pride in your work, and if so how do you separate the line in your work, and to follow up on the feature statement, do you think that it’s really pride that makes you that confident.Ri: Definitely. I think pride aids my creativity but when it comes to real life I need to work on letting things go and accepting when I’m wrong. I’ve been told I’m extremely stubborn so I’m working my way through that haha, Hard to say. I really dislike being shown up and when I’m a feature I’ll go through verses on verses just re writing until it’s better than someone else’sBirsha: I think that being stubborn is a double edged sword honestly, do you have any advice for people that are as stubborn as youRi: Yeah my advice (that I need to take action on myself) is to be proud of yourself but remember where the line is. Pride isn’t necessarily terrible as long as you don’t act like a dickhead and learn to let things go.Birsha: i think sometimes the best art is made from a level of arrogance and egotism, do you ever lean into that on trackRi: Oh for sure. I’m so heavy on rap that it totally gets into tracks. I don’t lean into it so heavy these days but over the last few years 100% I leaned into that shitBirsha: what’s a bar that encapsulates that perfectly do you thinkRi: I have this line on the track “Cadosia” with ANDA where I say “take the train and make a mockery outta you lame fucks” bc i took a train out to NY for that trip and the whole goal was to show these mfs up on a posse cut, Like I fucking love my guys from ANDA but that was a trip we organized fresh after I joined and I was a brand new member so I wanted to let em know I wasn’t there to fuck around. There was so much competition between us at that time and it was really funBirsha: how do you fit into anda, i love all the peeps over there, close friends with quite a few of em, how do they influence your work?Ri: When I joined it was intimidating because their discord server and group chats were full of open demos with DAE, Kaleb, Parker, and Dutch just washing people. I started just hopping on everyone’s opens and eventually they all really respected what I was doing. DAE and I had the most competition for sure though. He was always like the frontman of ANDA and then when I joined him and I were always battling for openings. I think I ended up being a pretty heavy creative force for ANDA with my verses but also like my beats and mixing/mastering.
To add to that. They leveled me up more than I could ever have thought. The shit I can do now creatively I owe to ANDA but more specifically to Scarlet and DAE. Scarlet became a really close friend and always supported me. DAE the video is like my brother and I think our collab shit is just so fun.Birsha: what’s your favorite track with DAE, one that gets the people goingRi: Either “make em stay” or “long drive from Clinton” Both are also up there with the best instrumentals I’ve ever madeBirsha: I’m going to find a way to link those on the official post for thisRi: Your the loml for that ❤️Birsha: so i’ve listened to quite literally your discography, like, a ton, and i see the complete work you’ve done, my love cardinal is unironically one of the best albums i’ve ever listened to, now we just talked about pride so don’t let that get to your head, but that album only took you 24 hours to make as you said earlier, what’s something from that album that you learned that just made it clickRi: I just didn’t overthink at all. Yes, we thought about a name and concept, but a lot of the concepts are pretty abstract in a way. Like some of those tracks don’t even have lyrics about the title specifically, we just made what we thought kinda felt like that sin in a sonic or emotional way. I made Jeffrey Joseph as a love letter inspired by my father and then Cardinal was like the other side of the coin like okay so now let’s deal with MY shit.Birsha: Is your father doing any better?Ri: Thanks for asking man. He’s feeling better recently. Doing chemo and some other treatments. The guy still goes into work which is crazy. But we spend a lot of time together these days and I’m thankful for the time we’re getting. We’ve always been close.Birsha: did he influence your music at all before the cancer and chemo, and ofc bro i genuinely care about you. Jeffrey joseph is a amazing song, and yea i can see how Cardinal was a deep dive into your pyscheRi: His influence on my music TASTE is pretty heavy. Lots of 70s 80s classic rock and metal. He bought me my first rap album at 8 years old which was 808s and heartbreak. Loves 90s boom bap shit like wu tang. We share a love of Michael Jackson. But I didn’t really incorporate the influence or inspiration until Jeffrey Joseph and Cardinal. Obviously though, the rap he showed me kickstarted my influence at a young age so I ALWAYS wanted to make rap music.Birsha: that’s some real shit, also your first rap album being a kanye album sets the bar high, who’s your favorite rapperRi: Hardest question ever. I think I always come back to Danny Brown though. He’s like my rap idol.Tyler the creator was a HUGE influence on my earlier shit though.Birsha: hey man, i pick west side gun, we on the same coin just different sidesRi: Definitely. I fucking love Gunn. My top three (right now at least) honestly are probably Danny, Rocky, and Rome streetz.Birsha: i gotta go mac, gunn, travis. that’s ofc right now as wellRi: Extremely solid. Mac is like who I tried to mirror when I was making music at 16 lmaoBirsha: real shit bro, everyone wanna be like god, but he wanna be like us. so a lighter question, when the fuck were you going to tell me your name was RY rather than Reee and i’ve been mispronouncing it like a fucking idiotRi: HAHAHA YOBirsha: THIS IS NOT A UNIQUE EXPERIENCE OKRi: Bro it’s so often someone pronounces it that way I always think it’s funny. I don’t even be correcting people anymore haha, Someone turned my music on at a party when I was just putting shit out and one of my boys walks up to the speaker and he’s like “who in the fuck is reee?”Birsha: you got the $not effect, everyone called his snot, not dolla sign not , alright bro, i think we’re out of space though this interview gotta fit into 10 slides, when your new album comes out on the 18th we can definitely do another. it’s always a pleasure, do you got any questions for me though?Ri: Perfect. Dude this was sick. I’m happy we got this in. I’m definitely down when the album drops. Always fun talking with you. And yeah I do got a question. When my BIRSHA shirt arriving pookie⁉️⁉️⁉️Birsha: ASK FUCKIN OMAR IMMEDIATELY