RiTchie with a T, better known as just RiTchie, spent the majority of the 2010s as one third of Injury Reserve, an experimental rap trio out of Tempe, Arizona. After seven years of activity and seven projects along with them, tragedy struck the group when rapper and member Stepa J. Groggs passed away in June of 2020. In September of 2021 the group dropped their final and most experimental project to date: “By the Time I Get to Phoenix.” It centered around the passing of Groggs and is the group’s darkest project because of it. Some time after RiTchie and the producer of the group, Parker Corey, announced that they would continue to make music under the group name “By Storm,” however in February of this year RiTchie announced that he’d be dropping his debut solo album first.

RiTchie is experimenting a lot on this album. He plays with his voice, his flows and especially his production. This is obvious from the first two tracks. The first one, “Wings [Intro],” is a heavily autotuned song that feels a lot like an interlude due to it’s shorter runtime but the second track, “WYTD?!?!” is loud, fast and in your face. 

“Dizzy (feat. Amine)” is probably the most “normal” song on the album with a simple drum loop and an organ line that makes it feel incredibly upbeat. Amine’s verse is a great addition with some great lines like “Your granny died, you taking fit pics at the funeral,” which is basically saying that some people get so involved in their image that they don’t register genuinely important things in their life.

One of the last tracks, “Get A Fade,” features RiTchie singing through what sounds like a talkbox that’s been bitcrushed. The lyrics center around an unknown person who lies to RiTchie “in the small stuff” like when they’ll get their next haircut. Everything about this song works together perfectly to make one of the most somber tracks on the entire album. 

RiTchie’s debut is truly all over the place but because of his versatility as a rapper, producer and singer it works perfectly and makes me incredibly excited for what he’ll do next.