Riplay is a fashionable dream-team comprising of real life sisters, besties and confidants.
Maryland natives, Shay [Marsahe Hebron], Lay [A’laiza Hebron] and Ki [Kiya Hawthorne], are skirting between the ages of 15 and 17-years-old.
The young women bring an intuitive cadence to the group, and not to mention Riplay takes pride on creating songs that are geared towards situational growing pains.
Their single Hate Me is a fun melody that talks about the green-eyed monster of envy, while Strange addresses bulliying and the importance of self-love.
“Even in our school, we’ve seen a lot of kids getting bullied for stuff that they don’t have to do. People [other kids] make them feel pressured. From our experiences of seeing things and knowing what’s going on, we felt as though we should speak on what’s going on.”
Strange featuring Lil Key from Jermaine Dupri’s “The Rap Game.”
Riplay, caramelizes their sound with bold acuity as well as powerful innuendos reminiscent to TLC. Of course, they own their style and purposeful flava, which is the reason they concentrate solely on subjects that are relevant today.
As for their bravura, the girls keep it sassy and classy at all times.
“See, that’s the thing, we aren’t trying to keep up with any of these trends. We’re trying to set our own trends and do things never seen before. They [people] may not like it but Riplay is going to be Riplay,” said Shay.
The girls are proliferating across the music scene in their area, but they hope to do more in the next coming year on a national scale.
It’s not a secret that singing ensembles are becoming obsolete, with notable groups heading for splits-ville.
Ki says that they are looking to change that veracity for the better.
Ki also shared that the group name [pronounced replay] was something that stuck with her. They had to present a catchy patronymic so that fans would remember them for years to come.
“There aren’t any girl groups that are out there right now, so we decided to form an all-female group. Originally, we were going to do it with a close friend, but it wasn’t her passion. We got into the the studio with our sister Shay, and she wrote her verse. Our dad said that she had a nice voice as a rapper, and he said we should stick with her vocals.
We were blessed to have our sister Shay. Ever since then, we’ve been making up dance moves and songs. Our dad was working with a lot of artist at the time, so we had to prove that this was something we really wanted,” Ki finished.
R&B vocalist, Chloe and Halle, are probably the only sibs in the market that’s making noise from the millennial standpoint when it boils down to soulful music, so Riplay is definitely clearing a concise path for the R&B-Pop genre in this era.
Shay says that for them, it’s fun working with her sisters…. “Being sisters makes it better. Even if we fuss, we’re still sisters at the end of the day, and that’s how we know that our group isn’t going anywhere. A lot of people expect us to break up, like the stuff that just happens [to other singing groups], but we know that isn’t going to happen [to us].”
The sisters confirmed that they grew-up singing in church, and not to mention, their dad managed and produced numerous artist.
Lay says that their craziest musical memories would have to be during recording sessions.
“When we’re in the studio, we get very tired. We start acting really goofy, and it may not be funny to other people but it’s funny to us,” she said.
“That’s how we keep ourselves up,” Shay elaborated.
“We love the studio, but we keep ourselves awake by laughing and telling jokes.”
Riplay works grueling hours, although they are firm on the concept that education comes before the entertainment.
“School comes first. We practice, practice, practice, twenty-four-seven because that’s basically our lives. We do our schooling, [and] we rehearse. We sing together and we do all that together twenty-four-seven. The work never stops, but it’s not hard for us to do it.
It’s something that we’re still getting used to. We feel like change is good, so having that consistently is really good for us. Once we get worldwide and start traveling, then it’ll be easier for us and it won’t be any playing. We’re just on it because that’s something we’ve continuously worked on from the jump,” shared Ki.
“Yeah, this is fun for us,” Shay sung in agreement.
Just like they stated, the adventure is still fresh for them, but they take the helms like champs and press on-ward so that they can build up that longevity in the business.
Riplay is governing the scene for R&B-Pop. Their good vibrations and unadulterated music identifies with adolescents of this generation.
In fact, their single, Status is another little affirmative banger that’s generic for teens who want to thrive amongst their peers.
With social media and other irking pressures that kids face, the song is just a reminder that children should focus on their goals in liue of negativity surrounding them.
Newest single Status
“We made the song so people would keep watching what Riplay is doing, to keep watching, you, period. If anybody is throwing negativity your way, let them watch, you, and keep going. The more that you let someone stop you from what you’re doing, the more you’ll stay back, and that’s not what you want. We just wrote [the song] from our generation because we know what’s going on now. It’s a lot of bullying that makes people feel like they’re not cool because they don’t do certain things, so we just came out with this positive message because that’s all we want is positive vibes. We tune-out the negativity. We don’t care about any of that.”
Riplay confirmed that it took them about a year to get acknowledged by Def Jam Recordings. They remained constant and never shrunk any parts of who they are as artist.
“My advice to other artist is to keep working hard, and be consistent,” said Shay.
“If it’s something you really want to do, [and] If it’s something that you really believe in, just keep going no matter how hard it is or how long it takes. Your time will come if it’s something that you consistently work at. Just love yourself, be yourself, and most importantly, respect yourself.”
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