RiQQY: “History” (Prod. Sonic Boom) – between the essential and the progressive!

RiQQY is a Hip Hop Artist out of Western Massachusetts, more specifically, the town of Amherst. After making music for about 12 years, he is anticipating the release of his debut album, “The Vision”, in 2017. RiQQY will also be opening on tour for RATKING’s Wiki come spring 2017, and has just dropped the single “History” (Prod. Sonic Boom), from the upcoming album.

This record is successful where much recent indie rap fails: rather than waxing nostalgic for hip-hop’s golden age, RiQQY has made a record that sounds straight from that era, not so much in its production which is ultramodern and spacey, but in its straightforward clever rhymes.

It is RiQQY’s emcee presence that is most reminiscent of early ’90s hip-hop. His cadence is reminiscent of the greats from the era, but without the excess bluster, and his flow is fluid and versatile — check the smooth transition to and from on this track for evidence.

Topically, RiQQY isn’t charting out undiscovered territory, but that doesn’t seem to be the mission here. As he lays out on the track, RiQQY is trying to establish equilibrium between the essential and the progressive without playing neither a nerd nor a thug – today’s common emcee prototypes.

RiQQY’s style is made up of confidence, poise, clever messages and a great flow to match. “I will never go down, unless I go down in history”, is just a smart and bold line that matches the artist’s grind and aspirations perfectly. It makes me mad every time someone says that hip-hop is not what it used to be and that it’s too wack now. What, there weren’t any wack rappers back from 1988 to 1994?

Anyway, you just have to know where to look, and similar to the good old days when decent rappers were on indie labels, you need to look to indie labels for real stuff today too. That said, “History” is a document of a talented and hard-working young artist’s fruit of labor. And in putting it together, RiQQY pulls off the considerable feat of evoking nostalgia for rap’s golden age without taking one single step backward step.