Tag: Keese

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Solo spotlight: Frequent collaborator Reagan Riley steps to the front of the stage

After three years of writing and recording her own material, as well as being featured on a slew of local rap tracks, R&B and neo-soul artist Reagan Riley performs her first-ever solo sets this week. Photo by Bua

On the enclosed patio of the Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar, Reagan Riley reclines into a stack of jewel-toned pillows scattered on the bench behind her as grey-white wisps of fruit-flavored tobacco vapor curl through the afternoon air, dissipating into a thin haze that’s more sunshine than hookah smoke. The room’s hardworking window A/C unit hums while Riley takes a sip of a matcha cooler—a deep, emerald green iced tea with a slight vegetal flavor, recommended by the tea house owner for its ability to take the edge off of a July afternoon in Charlottesville. Riley deems it “so nice.”

The whole scene is chill as fuck and therefore the perfect setting for Riley to discuss her electronic/neo-soul music.

Riley was raised in Charlottesville by musician parents—mom’s a singer and flutist, dad’s an a cappella singer and trumpet player—who encouraged their only child to pursue any and every creative interest: painting, drawing, poetry, singing. She’d always loved singing along to R&B and rap tracks and, in 2016, at age 18, stepped into the recording booth herself. Since then, she’s sung the hook on a slew of local rap tracks and appeared onstage with her collaborators. She’s released a good amount of her own original material, too, including the Summer Complex EP (2016), the Grown Since full-length album (2018), and a number of singles. After three years of writing and recording, Riley will perform her first-ever solo set on Wednesday night at The Garage (and her second on Sunday at IX Art Park). So, what’s taken her so long?

The short answer, says Riley, is fear. But the long answer—the real answer—is that Riley, just 21, has been taking her time finding her sound and herself.

“I’m an introvert,” says Riley. “I’ve always been kind of shy,” a singer who stepped into the booth not necessarily with the intention of sharing her work with others, but to grow confident in her voice and her lyrics.

Music “makes it very easy” for Riley to express whatever she’s thinking or feeling. “I’m always writing about my experiences, so in that sense, it’s always just my truth, however that comes out,” she says.

What comes out, says Riley, is a style that’s “definitely R&B, neo-soul-like. Chill vocals, kind of sensual and sexy. I don’t have a super big voice; my thing is more of a vibe. It’s a mood.” She’s been compared to Syd Tha Kyd (from The Internet) and SZA, and she says she feels a bit of vocal and vibe kinship with local indie folk-pop artist Kate Bollinger.

Riley sings on several local projects including the hook on Sondai’s “Silver Linings,” and on “Shadow,” off CLARKBAR$’ Tasty project. She’s collaborated with Keese a number of times.

“Reagan is dope,” says Keese. “Her style is unique. All you have to do is send her the track, she’ll write and come up with her own ideas. She turns a good song into a great song.”

Riley likes to mix up her process. Sometimes she’ll get a line in her head, write it down, and the next day, incorporate it into a song. Sometimes, she’s in the mood to write poetry instead, but when she looks back on it weeks or months later, it sounds like pretty good lyrics.

“I try not to do it the same way every time,” says Riley. “I think that’s dangerous…being creative is just being in the now, and if you’re caught up on doing something a certain way, you might miss up on an opportunity for something beautiful and organic to happen.”

Sometimes she hears the perfect beat—either given to her by a producer, or sourced from YouTube—and will have a song on the page in 10 minutes, without a change. That’s how it went with “Weekend,” her newest single, recorded after Riley hadn’t sung into a mic for about a year.

“It’s good to be back,” Riley declares at the start of “Weekend,” which is about the aftermath of a relationship that she was ready to end. It’s a song about self-rediscovery, Riley’s realization that she can’t lift people up if someone’s holding her down. It’s the kind of song that you might put on the stereo of a convertible as you drive a little too fast on a beachside highway, experiencing the freedom of movement that’s in your ears.

“The End,” another of Riley’s recent Spotify releases, is about her ability to see through bullshit. “This foamy sticky humidity, I look right past what eyes can see,” she sings at the start of this song. It’s an acknowledgment of how far she’s come already, and how past relationships have shaped her future—as a person and as an artist hoping to connect with her audience.

And right now, that means stepping into the spotlight as a solo artist on stage (with a little help from her rapper friends, at times), fear be damned.

Music “feeds me,” she says, settling deeper into the pillows and taking a sip of the matcha cooler. “It feeds my soul. It makes me happy, in the simplest sense. It’s good for me. And I’m always trying to do things that are good for me.”

Reagan Riley will perform her first solo sets this week: she’s at The Garage Wednesday, July 24, and at IX Art Park Sunday, July 28.

 

UPDATE: Wednesday, July 24, 11:15am. The show at The Garage has been cancelled.

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Arts

ARTS Picks: Gritty City Records

Keese will perform with Gritty City Records on Tuesday at The Ante Room. Photo by Amy Jackson

High-energy Richmond hip-hop coalition Gritty City Records featuring nearly a dozen emcees and producers gets real and raw, spitting fiery verse influenced by ’90s artists such as Nas, Mobb Deep and Wu-Tang Clan. The group is joined by socially conscious lyrical mastermind Keese, Alex Brown of extraterrestrial-seeking Friends From Earth and spiritual hip-hop duo Lo$tnFound.

Tuesday, March 21. $5-8, 7pm doors. The Ante Room, 219 W. Water St. 284-8561.

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Arts

Local rapper Keese envisions unity through compassion

Keese will perform with Gritty City Records on Tuesday at The Ante Room. Photo by Amy Jackson

Keese is a quiet guy. While growing up in Charlottesville’s 10th and Page neighborhood, he didn’t say much. But he paid close attention to everyone around him—his friends and family, his neighbors, what was going on in his city schools. English was his favorite subject—he liked to read and he loved to write stories.

When Keese started rapping at age 20, the words came naturally, but he says people were shocked. “Ask anybody—I was so quiet. I was in my shell, but hip-hop really gave me a voice to say what I want to say,” he says.

Keese, now 26, works at the downtown Key Recreation Center, but he raps in nearly all of his spare time. He’s built a following through energetic performances at Rugged Arts Hip-Hop Showcases at the Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar and sets at Magnolia House. His EP, False Hope, dropped in December, and he opens for Milwaukee rapper Milo at the UVA Chapel on Friday.

When Keese hears a beat, he starts to envision a story—a friend’s struggle or something that’s bugging him, then pages through his lyrics for the verse. “I’m inspired all the time,” he says. “I want to take people into my world, let them know what I’ve seen: poverty, bullying, racism—how the world is. The world is a pretty bad place. It could be better, but people don’t want to come together,” he says. Conscious hip-hop, though, can unite people through compassion, sympathy and mutual understanding. This is Keese’s angle.

“Purpose,” on False Hope, takes on what Keese calls “another black hood story” of a kid who’s picked on at school for not having the “freshest shoes.” “His moms can’t afford, she already got two jobs, older brother too concerned with the block, he ain’t even got a pops.” Then his crush asks him to back off and he’s devastated. “He ain’t even really had nobody by his side, no one to call for help. / Fed up with himself, he went home, older brother had a gun on his shelf,” Keese spits. Then the teen, who believes he has no purpose in life, points the gun to his head, closes his eyes and pulls the trigger, only to find the gun unloaded and himself not entirely alone.

“You got a whole lotta living left to do,” goes the hook.

Keese wrote “Purpose” for victims of bullying, as a reflection on a friend’s suicide. As a stellar lyricist, he knows the power of words and how deep they can burrow in the heart.

He doesn’t condone violence, drugs or hateful behavior. He’s “not into that stuff,” but his most popular song is called “Crack.”

“Crack, crack, I got that crack motherfucker,” he starts. “Listen to my flows, put it in your veins. / I’m gonna take you high…give it one try, you’ll never be the same,” he quips, lyrics tumbling out easily over the beat. “One time for the young Trayvons, Mike Browns, pipe down ’cause you ain’t saying nothing. / All these lame-ass rappers scared to tell the truth. / But quick to hit the booth and sell these lies to the youth. / I don’t get it, they spit it but never live it. / My lyrics speak from the soul, paint a picture with my vision.” Then, he declares belief that “we’re gonna be all right” because he’s been playing with you all along—you’ve been caught up in the sick beat, not paying close attention to the words. “I got ’em mad ’cause they thought a nigga start selling crack. / What they didn’t know is that was the plan to reel ’em in. / Now I got your attention, don’t be so offensive. / I still got the highs for your lows, come and hit this.”

“This” is his music, not rocks of cocaine. With its timely references, vivid images, killer rhymes and playful ruse, the song is clever and establishes Keese as a lyrical mastermind.

“Sometimes you have to disguise messages in certain songs to get people to listen,” Keese says, noting that the song warns of the dangers of selling and doing drugs. Opt for music instead, because it’s just as addictive and good for the soul. “Give you one track, you’ll never be the same.”

If a message isn’t something he believes in, he’s not going to put it out there. “I live what I write. I could easily say that ‘Crack’ is about drugs” to maintain a certain image, Keese says. “But I don’t want to be something I’m not. I’m sensitive. Everyone is sensitive; the world is sensitive. If that wasn’t the case, then we wouldn’t react to certain things,” he says.

People are getting his message. At Rugged Arts at the Tea Bazaar back in September, an eager crowd sang the lyrics to “Crack” at the top of their lungs—for Keese, who loves to perform live and feel that energy, the fact that people connect with his music gives him momentum.

“It feels like people are counting on me,” he says. “I want people who come to my shows to be inspired, to feel good about themselves, to want to do something better. I want to put this town in a position where everybody can do what they love.”