Raheeme Britt recently signed to BNR Records in Charlotte, NC, as one of their more diverse engineers of talent. It's safe to say that the successful BNR Records found something fiercely enterprising within Raheeme. The Queen City native is fluent in both hip hop as well as alternative R&B-- he also writes and engineers his own tunes. Recently, the songster released a mixtape called, “ You Were Rite .” The compilation ranges from thought provoking vibes to relationship advice sprinkled with pixie dust in the form of surging hip hop lyrics. His views on the album... “What we’re looking at is a 14-track project. 14 because we have a bonus track on there. It was originally a 13-track project. It’s just a consistent vibe of R&B and hip hop mixtures, or what not. It’s good music. It’s something to vibe to, and it came from my heart. It’s just what I do. It’s a grind. It’s not my first project coming out but, the title of it is called, “ You Were Rite . I really want to explain that through you looking at the cover. Once you look at the cover and then hear the lyrics, the vibe that’s going on with it, you’ll know."
"You Were Rite" Cover
The cultivator said that music was always an important part of his upbringing. In fact, he grew up singing to tunes that he was fond of like most kids with a natural talent for singing. Raheeme wasn’t pushed into the musical culture. It's obvious that he grew into it. Of course, with much multiplicity, the crooner considers himself a songwriter, producer, lyricist and singer. “Anything with music, I’m in it.” Since Raheeme is a younger artist that’s still working on the sequel to his booming life-narrative, he had a refreshing point of view about the entertainment industry. “The music industry, for me, it’s kinda everything to be honest cause this is what I put in effort for. This is what I grind for every day. This is what I was out there, trapping my little CD’s at the gas station, and this is what I put in the time and effort for. Being that it’s manifesting now, it’s really meaning everything to me, so I’m trying to soak in all the energy I can, right now, and just soak up the blessings cause God is really working." Breaking into the market as he stated wasn’t a journey through a field of daffodils and daisies. Raheeme worked. He said that it took him a while to break into the market, though he’s been composing music since he was 13-years-old, with his first song called, “Disappear.” Raheeme didn’t think much about his ditty. He said that it was really his mom that acknowledged his endowments as a creator of music. She was the first to encourage him through that initial song, to really pay attention to his gifts, and take them seriously. “I was already musically inclined from my mom’s side of the family. Well, I grew up listening to Laryn Hill, Pac, Biggie, and all of that while in the backseat of my mom’s car. I guess when she seen it in me, it was manifesting in me, the music that I was hearing and projecting it out. She was like, “You need to do this. It wasn’t something that I could be naïve about—it was Ma Dukes, and you gotta do what your moms say. She’s only going to tell you the best. It wasn’t that I had a problem with music. It just wasn’t something that I could see at the time. I was 13-years-old cutting up and skateboarding. Over the years, my mom has a brother, who is a music producer or what not—once me and my mom got connected with him, we started working with him, and he taught me how to audio engineer and compose records—how to really get in tune to what I’m doing and perfect what I’m doing by getting on another level of the craft, and I love it. That wasn’t something that I could just go away from. I’ve been doing ever since." Raheeme said that as an artist, he believes you should stay creative and true to yourself, which is how he was able to infuse his music with hip hop and R&B. Speaking of his urbane songs, “Where You Been,” is Raheeme’s favorite track from the mixtape. It [the song] means so much to me cause it’s like, all my life, I had homies that was down for me or whatever. Maybe they’re doing the same thing, and I couldn’t stay in that same [mundane] atmosphere. Whenever I ask what they’ve been up to, it’s always been the same thing. When they ask, ‘Raheeme, where you been?’ I been on my grind. I’ve been trying to make things happen cause I don’t want to stay stagnant in this situation in life. I want to live this one life, right, and do what I love.” Even though the voguish artist dripped with sauce from his fro-hawk, down to his multi colored sneakers, style was not always a strong suit for the young maestro.
"It [style] hasn’t always been incorporated with what I did, because growing up, my mom couldn’t always get us the best things and stuff like that. I don’t want to sound like a cliché or sound like everybody else, but that’s how it was, and our culture of—that’s how most black teens and singles moms too… whatever they’d get for their kid, they’d get it, and if they can’t then they can’t. My mom was hustling, and she already had five kids by the time she had me, so she did the best she could, and maybe the best she could [do] was like, AND1 [sneakers], probably Filas, or U.S. Polo. By the time I got of age and I got tired of being bullied at school, I knew how I could dress if I had the money to get it. It was always something that I had with me, and then when I finally got it, I did my own thing.
More from our interview session at BNR Records
Creative Visuals for Where You Been Follow Raheeme: [YouTube] RaheemeBritt [Instagram] @imRaheeme [Musical.ly]@imRaheeme [Twitter] @imRaheeme [Soundcloud] Raheememusic