What's your name? What do you do?

I am Rivan. I am a musician. 

So you used to be in a collective, or maybe still, called juice box. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Yeah. Juicebox is a seven person jazz hip hop band that started in Burlington, Vermont in like 2019, I think. We made some fire ass music and had some big momentum in the area and COVID hit and then we all got wish washed away to different states. So it's pretty dispersed at this point. 

Well, because we live in an internet age, we are able to finish the album from wherever the fuck everyone was.

What's the name of the album?

It's “Ollies in the Hallway”.

It's out right now?

Yeah. (Stream that)

Cool.  Um, and you're part of another collective or group, right, that you started?

Who?

The Queen's…

Queen City Kickback.

Yeah. 

That was um, that's me and my friend Jesse. That's just like an event service that we have in Burlington. We put on shows.

Where did that in Queen City come from?

That's what Burlington is called.

Oh, really?

Queen City.

Oh, wow. And you're from Burlington, right?

Yeah. Born and raised. In a big city. In the biggest city in Vermont.

*Laughter*

Are there any other groups or collabs that you've been really excited about in New York since you've been here? How long have you been in New York?

In terms of music groups or party planners or what?

Um, I was thinking about music, but if there's something, anything else you can think of, go for it. 

Well, shout out to Erf World. I heard they're doing some really cool stuff. They seem pretty chill. Hopefully their neighbors will chill out on them and they can start throwing some parties again.  I've been living in New York for two years now. The only collective that I'd say I'm loosely a part of is this group called Supernova. That was started by my friends 3ee, Kenji, Rose, and Frankie. They own a recording studio in Bushwick that, um, a lot of our friends will go to. They mainly do R&B as their primary genre, I guess, but, you know. We got a little Discord with a bunch of people in it and that's how I met a lot of my friends that I have now. Through that group, I met them through this thing called Quadio which is like LinkedIn for college musicians. So when I moved here, I just was like reaching out to random people on the internet through that. And then this kid that I met Solly, like, was a part of that group and he introduced me to those people. And now all those people are friends.

So cool.

Yeah.

Um, So, you're always very good at bringing energy on stage and everything. Have you been a perform forever? Or was there any time in your life that you can remember starting?

Yeah, I did, um,  I got into writing when I was in 9th grade. 

Writing, like, lyrics? Or just like, generally?

It was always towards creative writing, I’d never been good at math or science or history. So it's like, you're kind of left with English as the other subject. Um, but we had this dude, Rajnii Eddins come in. I think I was a sophomore, maybe at the end of ninth grade at Burlington high school. And he came and he did poetry classes for us.  Um, and I was just really inspired by just how he spoke to the room. That was like the first, I don't know, cool creative writing sort of practice that I ever did. So, I really leaned towards that and he was my mentor for a bit. Then I started doing poetry readings around Burlington and I was put on a lot of, like, POC showcases.

Um, but then I realized that I was just kind of just making rap music but performing it as poetry. So I ended up making music with my friend, I Man. He helped me out a lot. And then the first show I ever did was the Talent Show in 10th grade. I performed

Nice.

An original.

An original. Was it a smash hit?

It was so bad, but no, like, it was, it was good. Like I did pretty good for my first performance and also having no real, I don't know, like, mentorship to really work off? Cause there's not really a huge hip hop scene in Vermont. I've definitely learned from some of the older cats that are there that have helped me out along the way.

But, um, it's not like I grew up with people rapping around me all the time. So, yeah.

Would you say now you have any kind of mentors or muses or even, like, people that you aspire to be like in your field or just generally? 

I'd say like, performance wise, um, I just kind of watch like, performances of my favorite rappers online, or artists or whatever, like,  Tyler the Creator is my favorite performer, I've seen him like four times now, um, the way that he, presents himself on stage is fucking insane.

His Grammy's performance, have you ever seen that?

The one with the hair?

Yeah.

I've never seen it, honestly.

Dude, to this day, it gives me goosebumps every single time I watch it.

Wow, really?

Yeah. Um,  So they, they like, I'll just watch people that I like from a performance angle online, like videos of it, or in person.

And then for direct music inspiration…  Um.  I just be listening to so much shit, so it really comes from all sorts of places, but I'd say Childish Gambino is probably like one of my biggest

I do hear that a lot actually.

Yeah, and then visually, like, my visuals, I try and take a lot of inspiration from movies and especially cartoons.

My favorite music video of yours, the ‘Ca$h’ one.

Yeah.

Every time anyone asks me what my favorite movie is, I always say Fear and Loathing, so that was crazy that you made that.

Yeah, I love that movie

Yeah, so when it comes to beats, I mean, naturally anyone becomes more fleshed out throughout their career, but I feel like your recent songs have been very unique. So when you're looking for a beat, or if you're looking for a producer, what is it you are looking for? Or how much do you reject, how much do you play with? 

I'd say I've listened to so much hip hop at this point that I'm-- within milliseconds, I'm pretty much able to tell whether a beat is worth my time or not. Just based off of uniqueness that it's able to bring to the table. I'm on a roll right now where I'm releasing a lot of boom bap hip hop.

That's what my next project is going to be, just pretty much all boom bap. Um, but boom bap hip hop beats have been made since the literal beginning of hip hop. So finding beats that have-- they have to stand out in some way in order for you to literally be noticed compared to other rappers. Because, a lot of people aren't even really listening to music for lyrics, which, I know I'm like a fucking killer writer. I'm able to definitely stand out in that way. Like music nerds would probably be able to get hyped on my shit compared to other rappers but the general consumer won’t be like, “oh I've never heard that noise.” “Oh, that's a weird riser.” “Oh, that reverb is crazy on this.”

And you definitely have a lot of samples too. Is that something you bring in later or is that the producer, like, had these cool samples?

I bring the samples. On my last EP that I did, I took a bunch of snippets from Juicebox and threw those in there. That’s also where the movie influence is. I like to put things in there.

So what is your favorite movie?

Nacho Libre.

Yeah, that is such a good movie.

I'm waiting for the right time to do a full Nacho Libre music video. Sample everything.

I'll help you with that.

Cause the soundtrack also goes so hard.

Yeah. Such a good fucking movie.

I've seen it like a billion times.

So how has it been coming from Burlington to New York?

I mean, Burlington is such a unique area, especially as a person of color, like, knowing where you fit as a creative there versus here is night and day. You can be, I don't know, big fish in a little pond in Vermont and then you're one in a billion of a million other people here and there's like a lot of ups and downs in that process because you're able to  be surrounded by so many like minded people. But music has always been my main passion. I have been realizing over the past two years, talking to people that are on the up, they have teams of people behind them.

Like aside from a few homies that I have, it's really all on me to make this shit happen because  a lot of my friends have their own independent projects that they take as their main priority. So, it's really all on me to make that shit happen. 

For real. 

Well on a lighter note, you're a gamer, right?

I am.

Yeah?

I am a gamer.

What is your favorite video game?

You CAN catch me running duos with Evan in Fortnite on Friday nights sometimes.

How much money have you spent on Fortnite? 

You know, like, uh I have to check the bank history, like, I have to go back through the TD Bank statements.

That's all redacted.

Over, over the whole course, how much do you think you've spent on Fort?

Oh, I know exactly how much I've spent.

You do?

I spent, uh, $11.99 on the premium rewards one time. And then I think I spent $20, $25 on the Futurama pack. That's it.

Really?

Yeah.

Damn.

Well that's pretty much it. Do you have any, any final statements you might want to like put in or any shout outs?

Listen to my song Lemonade that I have dropping on the 15th.  That'll be my next single. Um, that's a very personal song to me. It's one of my favorites that I've made. I think it's my favorite that I've made so far, honestly. I really love that song. And then, um, look out for a little mixtape from me in May. 

Cool.

And stream my shit and follow me on Spotify.  Encouraged.

Alright, well, thank you so much for coming into the interview.

Thank you for having me, sir. It was a pleasure. Did I get the job?

Yeah, you did.

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