RADAMIZ IN MUSIC TO KNOW
Full interview & photos by Jaxon Buzzell.
GASP: Tell us your name and where you’re from?
RADAMIZ: My name is Radamiz and I’m from Bed-Stuy Brooklyn.
GASP: How long have you been making music and what got you started?
RADAMIZ: I’ve been making for about fifteen years now, but it feels like every six months is like the start of something new. What got me started was that there’s a process where you don’t see yourself in anything that you’re doing until eventually you do, and music was the first real concrete thing where it felt like this is a reflection of who I am and not only that but it can also sometimes take the lead in my becoming of myself. Sometimes the music is me before I am and vice versa, sometimes my life and whatever experiences I’m having is reflected in my music.
GASP: Was there a defining moment in your life where you knew this is what you wanted to do?
RADAMIZ: The second rhyme I wrote, because it was better than the first. The second rhyme I wrote, I was like “oh shit” that's an improvement right away.
GASP: What keeps you inspired?
RADAMIZ: I’m inspired to communicate truths and even see miscommunications to a certain extent between all races, classes, backgrounds, cities, opinions and especially opinions people feel strongly about. There is a common denominator to a certain extent that makes all of us the same and I think music simplifies and puts into accurate phrasing the complex emotions that come with just being a human and for me I’m inspired to just become the vessel for that. I’m inspired to pick up books, watch films, have conversations, heal in real time, experiment, and everything else that makes life interesting. By doing this I’ve realized I don’t have a problem with thinking out loud and thinking out loud with my music, and that creates a relationship with the people that do fuck with you where everyone knows that we’re really all in this shit together. I feel like I can just cure the world to a certain level, I can at least put some complex shit that we may all be going through into more simple words so everyone can understand it. Words are finite, words are very limited but you organize them the right way and you can really change the world.
GASP: What do you think it means to be an artist?
RADAMIZ: To be an artist is to be the most empathetic, emotionally available and reflective of the times, your peers and your city as possible. To be an artist is to honor the responsibility of pushing the planet forward. I think society on a general level prioritizes the quick buck and simple exchange of an amount of time for an amount of dollars, and yes that’s the most cookie-cutter form but the world is nothing without art. The world is nothing without architects, painters, musicians, designers, poets, philosophers, and that really emcompasses the world and what pushed the planet forward. Being an artist is having the responsibility of making life livable for everyone else.
GASP: I’ve seen you breaking the common stereotypes of what a rapper should be especially based on where you’re from. What would you say is the importance of using your identity and platform to push those barriers placed on artists and specifically rappers in today's world?
RADAMIZ: If you’re inspired by anyone or anything, what usually is one of the main ingredients is individuality. How unique your perspective is, how one of one the path you took to get there was and at the same time having a core value that speaks to the entire world like a Nike “Just Do It” or Nina Simone just unequivocally this voice of her generation. When I first started I was enamored and admiring something that was unachieveable amongst the plethora of people and ideas out there but I started to realize that these are just human beings at the end of the day just making choices. Obviously they are all blessed and talented in their own way but everyone else is too, so the deeper I tapped into what it was that I admired about the shit that I loved the more I realized that it was about embracing every aspect and component of yourself and doing it no matter what is going on in the world. For me, the byproduct of that has been people saying “you don’t look like the typical rapper” or “you don’t make music like the typical artist from Brooklyn'' and I end up breaking the mold because I embraced all the things that make me unique in the first place and the more that I continue to do that the iller I just end up being as a motherfucker on this planet.
GASP: What can we expect next from you both as a person and an artist?
RADAMIZ: Lately I’ve been working on a couple of albums, a couple of book projects, some fashion collabs, I just made a song for adidas called “Plant A Seed'' that's tapping into respecting this planet, and I’ve been working on my mixtape “Every Bad Day Has Good News”. Besides that I really just feel special right now I don’t think anything else in the world sounds or looks like what I’m doing right now, and I’m just inspired to keep doing it because I’m having fun so in a nutshell I’m just gonna keep having fun and hopefully that just ends up being some real shit because I’m enjoying where I’m at in this moment.
