After spending the later half of the 2010s as a part of rap trio Injury Reserve, rapper and producer RiTchie is finally releasing solo work. Since the death of their close friend and fellow musician, Stepa J. Groggs, RiTchie and Injury Reserve producer, Parker Corey, have been hard at work on their first project under the name By Storm. However during this process RiTchie started making solo music as “a personal outlet to release [his] mental barriers.”
His earlier work on “Floss” and the Injury Reserve “Self-Titled” album had a harder more aggressive style but on “RiTchie Valens” he uses a slurred together flow which is more comparable to his recent work on Injury Reserve’s “By the Time I get to Phoenix.” in both production and flow, in doing this it gives the song a cohesive feel.
The beat consists mainly of washed-out synths, metronome-style high hats and a vocoded refrain. It’s very similar to some of the synth work on “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” but with a much more optimistic feel which works as this is the start of a new chapter in RiTchie’s career.
