Hip Hop artist Riky Rick talks fatherhood and relationships in his latest album, “Family Values” writes Katlego Mkhwanazi.
Local hip hop artist Riky Rick, born Rikhado Makhado, has finally found his place under the spotlight. For a while he was the guy producing music for musicians like MXO and L-Tido.
Some may have been introduced to Rick’s music through his 2011 single, Barbershop, featuring Da LES. Mail & Guardian caught up with Rick to talk about his new album, Family Values. Dressed in a black and white tracksuit, he sits on his couch in his Johannesburg home and adjusts his reversed cap. He just had an early morning TV interview and looks like he could do with a few more hours of sleep. But this is all in a day’s work.
The rapper/producer/actor has been working in the music industry since 2006. His passion for making music was ignited while he was studying film and production at AFDA. He started out recording music with his friends and soon decided to take up rapping as a career. While the interest in kwaito has decreased, the pool of local hip hop acts has widened over recent years with hip-hop artists now infusing their sound with 1990s kwaito samples.
Rick is one of the new school hip-hop artists who, just like KO and Cassper Nyovest, have a sound that’s heavily influenced by kwaito.
Rick however tells the M&G that he prefers not to mix kwaito with hip hop in his songs, but rather stick to kwaito in its purest form. “My album doesn’t have that kwaito sound. It’s a soulful album mixed with a progressive sampling style.
“I produce everything; I produce kwaito, hip hop, and house. So for me it doesn’t really make a difference what genre it is. I mixed up all the genres I grew up on and most of us grew up on the kwaito, so we mix the kwaito elements inside the stuff we do also. But I make pure Kwaito beats … I’m not really blending kwaito.”
In Family Values, he raps over house and EDM beats and features collaborations with artists such Okmalumkookat, Nyovest and Black Motion. Rick produced most of the songs on the album.
For full story by Katlego Mkhwanzi and clip see Mail & Guardian
