In Full Effect With Radio Rahim (@realradiorahim)

Q. Tell us a bit about how and why you got into hip hop?

I got into hip hop in the early 90’s as a young kid. I am a fan first and fore­most of this artistry.  My moth­er intro­duced me to James Brown at a young age and I imme­di­ately feel in love with the style, the sound, and the cul­ture that hip hop car­ried. By the age of 14 I was writ­ing rhymes as often as pos­sible and per­form­ing at loc­al tal­ent shows with friends. In high school, I star­ted work­ing at a loc­al radio sta­tion in Char­le­ston, South Car­o­lina and began per­form­ing very often with my friend DJ Kur­fu.  He helped me record my first album, Borne Phoenix.

Q. Has hip hop had a sig­ni­fic­ant impact on the way you live your life out­side the music?

Yes, hip hop cul­ture is a part of my nor­mal life. I have been util­iz­ing all ele­ments of hip hop from a young age to express myself.  The golden era of hip hop (mid-90s) a tre­mend­ous pos­it­ive impact on the way I carry myself, dress and cre­ate my art.

Q. In your opin­ion what makes hip hop so important?

Hip Hop is time­less. Hip Hop has the abil­ity to cap­tiv­ate people of all back­grounds through the use of a pretty simple tech­nique, steady beats and pro­vok­ing lyr­ics.  Of course, there are sev­er­al dif­fer­ent genres of hip hop today but ori­gin­ally hip hop was about hav­ing fun and education.

Q. Tell us a bit about In Full Effect, how did it come about and what are some of your major influences?

My latest album, In Full Effect, was a col­lab­or­at­ive effort between iLL Adren­aline pro­du­cer Con­fid­ence and myself. I con­nec­ted with Con­fid­ence through Twit­ter a couple years back.  I really enjoyed his pre­vi­ous mater­i­al with Rashaad.  His sound cap­tures the raw­ness of the golden era of hip hop.  I am a big fan of KRS-ONE, Rakim and through the course of sev­er­al months he passed me beats and I craf­ted In Full Effect.  I had been plan­ning this album for a few years but it was­n’t until I con­nec­ted with Con­fid­ence that I knew it would be a reality.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZfXHwKNEtc[/youtube]

Q. When dis­cuss­ing the title track for this album you talk about your “feel­ings about an awaken­ing in Amer­ic­an con­scious­ness which unfor­tu­nately seems to be going dormant again”. Which aspects of this awaken­ing are most import­ant to you?

The Amer­ic­an awaken­ing I referred to is the real­iz­a­tion of us, Amer­ic­an cit­izens, that we must demand full trans­par­ency from our gov­ern­ment.  Unfor­tu­nately, the United States polit­ic­al sys­tem is an olig­archy not a demo­cracy. It is a sys­tem ran by the ultra-élite to bene­fit the ultra-élite.  The lower and middle classes are dis­en­fran­chised by this polit­ic­al sys­tem. Until, Amer­ic­ans demand changes in the cur­rent polit­ic­al sys­tem the inher­ent cor­rup­tion will con­tin­ue.  The losers are always the lower and middle class of Amer­ica, who have nev­er been represented.

Q. What are some of the main issues you aim to address in your lyrics?

The main issues I address in my lyr­ics are my feel­ings about the life I live and my per­spect­ive on the world around me.  Wheth­er speak­ing of frus­tra­tions with US polit­ic­al sys­tem or reflect­ing on tri­als and tribu­la­tions, I weave my thoughts into my lyr­ics for listen­ers to under­stand my perspective.

Q. Do you think the intel­lec­tu­al capa­city off hip hop is under-appreciated?

The intel­lec­tu­al capa­city of hip hop is under appre­ci­ated by main­stream Amer­ica but minor­ity of listen­ers and fans who know the roots of hip hop are not dis­trac­ted by com­mer­cial non­sense wrapped in the garb of hip hop.  Real music and lyr­ics always stand out.

Q. What can we expect for the future?

I have just star­ted work my 2015 solo pro­ject which will fea­ture pro­duc­tion from some of the finest beat­makers from Wash­ing­ton DC. I am also work­ing on sev­er­al more videos to com­pli­ment my latest album “In Full Effect”.

Down­load the album for free now: https://radiorahim.bandcamp.com/album/in-full-effect

By Grant Summers

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Rishma

Edit­or / PR Con­sult­ant at No Bounds

Rishma Dhali­w­al has extens­ive exper­i­ence study­ing and work­ing in the music and media industry. Hav­ing writ­ten a thes­is on how Hip Hop acts as a social move­ment, she has spent years research­ing and con­nect­ing with artists who use the art form as a tool for bring­ing a voice to the voiceless.

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