INTERVIEW | RAYZA TALKS ABOUT HIS NEW MIXTAPE ‘ZERO GRAVITY’ OUT 11 AUG 2018

NEW YORK — I was in the birth­place, where it all began. A friend of mine had hooked me up with a seat on ‘Hush Tours’. A mini tour of the Hip Hop spots in NYC run by those embed­ded in the cul­ture itself, I highly recom­mend if you are ever in the city and an avid fan of Hip Hop such as myself or even just curi­ous about the cul­ture. This is where I first met RayZa, one of the Hush Tour hosts. Instantly I blown away by Rayza’s energy, his high spir­its were infec­tious. His pas­sion for the love of Hip Hop was strik­ingly evid­ent, and it later emerged his MC skills were just as fierce as enthu­si­asm. Known to be sharp at everything he does had people call­ing him, ‘Rayza’ from an early age, and this also tran­spired to his art of MCing.

Of Black & Nat­ive Amer­ic­an her­it­age, born in Queens, New but raised par­ti­cip­at­ing in battle raps through­out the city, it was nice to meet a new­er gen­er­a­tion of MC and get an insight into how the cul­ture has influ­enced him and evolved him into the artist he is this present day, with the influ­ence of vari­ous bor­oughs of New York. The offi­cial Prodigy of Grand­mas­ter Caz and hon­or­ary mem­ber of the ‘Legendary Cash Crew’ lead by Reg­gie Reg, RayZa knows his his­tory and is respec­ted by those who came before him, I was inter­ested to find out more about the man behind the artist. Releas­ing his new mix­tape, ‘Zero Grav­ity’ in 2018 to coin­cide with the anniversary of the birth of Hip Hop on August 11^th, it was the per­fect oppor­tun­ity for me to catch up with RayZa and find out more about his latest pro­ject on his own record label EBE (Every Body Eats), named so because every­one on his label both rap­pers and pro­du­cers get looked after.

Rayza, it’s been a minute since we last spoke, I was excited to hear your new mix­tape and I had to hit you up. Firstly, I loved the concept of, ‘Zero Grav­ity’, which you explain on one of your skits as Grav­ity being a meta­phor for neg­at­ive energy and keep­ing it Zero Grav­ity is all about not let­ting neg­at­ive people, things or neg­at­ive thoughts con­trol you by pulling you down. One thing which really stands out for me is the pos­it­ive affirm­a­tions through­out your mix­tape. It’s refresh­ing and really sums you up not only as an artist, but also as a per­son, someone who keeps very pos­it­ive, spread­ing good vibes. How do you keep that mind set in this day and age?

Word it’s been a min! But it’s always good to hear from you, glad you reached out for this inter­view. If you’re like me and you study your life and everything you go through you’re going to con­stantly take your­self to the next level if that’s your goal. Any­thing I ever go through wheth­er pos­it­ive or neg­at­ive I always study the situ­ation and myself as far as how it made me feel and my actions as a res­ult. It took a while for me to get my shit togeth­er and I’m still not per­fect (laughs) but I’ve been through a lot of ups & downs to get to this point. One thing I’ve learned is that there are two type of people in this world, people that have things hap­pen to them that can cause them to go to a neg­at­ive place as a res­ult which can end up hold­ing them back from evolving, and people that make things hap­pen regard­less of what life throws at them by try­ing their best to stay pos­it­ive. It’s all about focus. We live in a world full of good, bad, ugly and beau­ti­ful and it’s up to you where you allow your focus to be held. People and life situ­ations will either push you for­ward or hold you back but the choice is yours even when it doesn’t seem like it. That’s the whole point of liv­ing in ‘Zero Grav­ity’, it’s not let­ting any­one, or any­thing includ­ing your­self hold you down. Some­times it’s easy to keep your head up and some­times it’s not, but the harder it is to pull through the stronger you’ll be when you over­come the situ­ation and you have no choice but to over­come what life throws at you because that’s how you sur­vive. I’ll be the first to tell you that we are born to be great, I feel like great­ness is a choice you either choose it or lose it but it’s always in you and the more you go through and over­come the great­er you become. Its ok to slip and feel like you fell face first into some shit you weren’t ready for, we all fall some­times but the key is to pick your­self back up in due time no mat­ter the situ­ation because that’s what makes you great.

I feel you, that’s real deep and really does come across on this mix­tape, it’s quite reflect­ive and thought pro­vok­ing. The mel­low instru­ment­als really com­pli­ment this notion and when I put it on I wanted to take a minute out of my busy day to actu­ally stop and think about the dir­ec­tion my life is mov­ing in. At the same time your flows switch up to keep it dynam­ic, as a remind­er to keep things con­stantly mov­ing for­wards. The Jazzy flow on the title track, ‘Zero Grav­ity’ has a nice vibe to it, and that smooth flow hints at that out­er body exper­i­ence, pos­sibly from lev­it­at­ing. ‘Smoke Ses­sion’ just reminds me of those 80’s flicks like Kar­ate Kid! Pos­sibly because that’s part of my happy child­hood memor­ies and it’s all a part of being reflect­ive and going back to those places where we felt good. 

 Wow 80’s flicks like kar­ate kid that’s dope as fuck! Yea you was lev­it­at­ing fa sho! Music can make you feel high even when your sober and I’m a king pin when it comes to that type of music. That’s because I’m a king with the pen you feel me? Wheth­er I free­style a track off the top of my head or write it down if I’m going to kick some shit it’s def­in­itely going to make Mr. Miy­agi proud (laughs). I love your com­par­is­on to movies because I feel like a lot of my music is just that. A motion pic­ture that sets a vibe through the flows I use to paint over a beat. We are all Kings or Queens liv­ing out our own movie and it’s up to you how you wear your crown just make sure you put it on before you do whatever you choose to do.

I think it’s a real nice touch you have skits of your con­ver­sa­tions, real life hap­pen­ings which make the mix­tape more authen­t­ic. The skit with Hush Tours took me back to get­ting hyped on the tour bus! You even have a skit of you play­ing the piano show­ing your diversity as an artist. The sample of Tupac from the on the track ‘Juice’ from the movie with the same title, made me smile. Resur­rec­ted memor­ies of that movie for me but also reminded me of how much of a rare char­ac­ter Tupac was and a unique artist. You have many ref­er­ences to 90’s Hip Hop and artists who came before you, which I think is very respect­ful, but at the same time you do you and don’t try to emu­late them. How import­ant is it to you to pay homage to those artists before you?

 One of the best ways to go far in life is by not for­get­ting where you came from or who paved the path to get you where you’re going. I love every­one and any­thing that has to do with Hip-Hop and rap music because I see the cul­ture as my fam­ily. Wheth­er you’re a lyr­ic­al rap­per, mumble rap­per, pro­du­cer etc. whatever lane you choose I got noth­ing but love for you and what you do because it’s a part of who I am. I may not agree with everyone’s views or life­style choices but that doesn’t change the fact I see them as a fam­ily. Hav­ing respect for the artists who came before me or after is hav­ing respect for myself because without them there is no me. It takes an army to con­quer the world and I feel that’s what we’ve done. There are many sol­diers who fought the battle before I stepped a foot in the field we call “Hip-Hop” who deserve noth­ing but the same respect I would give to myself because without them there would be no RayZa and there would be no us. So I pay homage and salute those who dropped bombs on the mic before me as much as pos­sible because they are the reas­on I’m even able to do what I do. If we treat them like they nev­er exis­ted that would even­tu­ally lead to the down­play of what they did it for and that’s what our enemies want right? For us to hate on each oth­er rather than push the hip-hop & rap move­ment for­ward when we are all kings & queens. If we don’t pre­serve our his­tory through respect for our pion­eers, peers and suc­cessors in this cul­ture then we become tem­por­ary moments with­in the cul­ture and hip-hop is forever. Through music we become immor­tal so let’s do this the right way and push our people for­ward and not in the oppos­ite dir­ec­tion. Don’t be fooled into think­ing it’s cool to treat people in our cul­ture like a joke just because your dif­fer­ent than them because you’ll even­tu­ally become that joke and aint shit funny about that when it comes to your leg­acy. So in my opin­ion there’s noth­ing more import­ant than pay­ing homage to the artist before me, and even after.

Hav­ing heard some of your earli­er music you have def­in­itely come a long way as an artist and developed your style, the pro­duc­tion sounds pretty tight on this mix­tape. You are in a great place to be amongst pion­eers such as Grand­mas­ter Caz and Kur­tis Blow… how did this come about and how do you think that has affected you as an artist?

I’m always mak­ing sure I evolve as an artist because even though I see the cul­ture of hip-hop and rap as my fam­ily it’s still com­pet­it­ive as fuck and right­fully so, that’s what makes us great. Put it this way when me and my fam have get togeth­ers me, my broth­ers and cous­ins always play street bas­ket­ball. I’m not about to come on the court with the same moves from the year before I’m com­ing for the win so I’m mak­ing sure I take my shit to the next level and keep my game sharp because that’s just how we do. With rap for me take that scen­ario and mul­tiply it by ten thou­sand and that’s how I feel about devel­op­ing my style on the mic. Im always lev­el­ing up and learn­ing new tricks to show nig­gas I ain’t come to play games even though we fam (laughs). I use to battle rap in my hood all the time and even came in first place when they threw a rap battle com­pet­i­tion at my school where all the rap­pers came out, that’s because there would always come a point where I would tell myself time to take this shit to the next level and that’s’ nev­er changed. Being amongst pion­eers such as Grand­mas­ter Caz, Reg­gie Reg, Scoob etc. there’s no way it’s not going to affect you as an artist I mean they are pion­eers and have know­ledge for days. But to me they’re not just pion­eers they are friends who’ve taught me shit not only in hip-hop but out­side of it. I’ve always fol­lowed my energy when it comes to hip-hop and for some reas­on it always puts me exactly where I need to be and it’s prob­ably because I know who I am and when you know who you are God takes care of the rest when you’re will­ing to put in the work. Being a part of the Hush Tours fam­ily is price­less and that’s where I ori­gin­ally met these pion­eers and many more, from there we became friends because that’s just what happened and its always been love ever since and I got noth­ing but love and respect for my big bros. Their just dope as shit man, wheth­er you talk­ing out­side of music or in it they are great friends peri­od. I always thank the CEO of Hush Tours Debra Har­ris for believ­ing in me since day one, she’s amaz­ing and what she’s cre­ated and built makes her a hip-hop legend in her own right through what she does for the cul­ture. She’s just a super dope per­son and a busi­ness geni­us and I’m grate­ful that she believed in me to make me a part of the Hush Tours fam­ily. She’s had over a mil­lion people on the tour like yo come on! That’s over a mil­lion people that have learned the roots of the cul­ture thanks to what she’s cre­ated and above all she’s not only great at what she does she’s a great per­son. Being around these type of people can only make you bet­ter at whatever it is you do wheth­er you’re talk­ing your craft or just life itself.

I didn’t really know which angle you would be tak­ing with this mix­tape but you found that per­fect bal­ance between that nuskool sound and those strong 90’s prin­ciples of con­scious thought, so someone like me can get down with it! It just works and I think it will be received very well around Europe, it has a uni­ver­sal vibe to it. You must be look­ing for­ward to per­form­ing out­side of the US, how did that come about?

That’s dope as fuck man love is love it’s great to get feed­back like that, espe­cially from people such as your­self who keep the bar raised high for what you expect from an artist so that means everything to me. Since I meet people from all around the world every week who always ask me to come where they’re from and per­form and I finally got my pass­port (laughs) I’m mak­ing it hap­pen. The mix­tape is drop­ping so it’s the per­fect time to go around per­form­ing it and Lon­don, Par­is and Ams­ter­dam are three places I’ve always wanted to go so that’s where I’m start­ing! I’m blessed to have inter­na­tion­al con­nec­tions and I’m put­ting them to great use. Ill also be per­form­ing in Aus­tralia very soon with one of my pro­du­cers Sad­iva from Mel­bourne who is a fuck­ing beast at mak­ing beats so Aus­tralia look out I’ll be there soon.]

That all sounds really excit­ing, I wish you all the best with your per­form­ances and I look for­ward to hear­ing your future pro­jects and see­ing you in New York soon!

 You can check out Rayza’s mix­tape, ‘Zero Grav­ity’ out on  Datpiff.com avail­able for down­load or Sound cloud now or catch him at a show near you in Lon­don, Par­is and Ams­ter­dam soon. Make sure to fol­low him on Ins­tagram @RayZa_Eb3 for live updates and inform­a­tion on where he’ll be Performing!