“I have always been a hustler,” Rimzee says. “Music comes second because even though people say that your dream will eventually pay you, hope is not a strategy. I have to make sure that I can look after myself first.”
For the 30-year-old rapper, real name Ricardo Miles, artistry has long been intertwined with independence – both financial and creative. Starting out in 2010 with a string of hard-hitting freestyles that found notoriety online – including a gritty cover of Adele’s “Hometown” – it was the 2012 release of his debut mixtape, TheUpper Clapton Dream, that cemented Rimzee as a voice demanding to be heard. Tracks like “Hard Life” and “Keep Stackin” paired brightly melodic samples with Rimzee’s clear delivery on the dark realities of everyday violence, cash culture and the territorial loyalties that came with living in his northeast London enclave.
Read the interview in Composer Magazine.
[This piece was published on 29/07/22]
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