Music
Riky Rick's Personas Converge
A hit-maker, a fashion royal and a constant helping hand for up and coming acts, Riky Rick's three personas converged with Cotton Fest
Rapper Riky Rick is known as much for his catchy and punchy lyricism as he is for his dress sense. "Sidlukotini", one of his major hits in sales and an influence on the culture, attests to this. Directly translated, the title of the 2016 track means "to eat cotton" but it is a slang term meaning people who are stylish or have a superior dress sense.
Riky Rick
© Mpumelelo Macu
No wonder, then, that the self-proclaimed King Kotini's first foray into the festival promotion business would be through the Cotton Fest, a one-day festival featuring big names Youngsta CPT, AKA, Kwesta, Nasty C and others alongside lesser-known acts. Ricky Rick opened up about discovering and promoting music, success and much more.
Riky Rick
© Mpumelelo Macu
On festival promoting
I don't think I've become a festival promoter, I think that's just an aspect of what we do. But when I feel like there's a cool event that we need to do, we're going to do it. I get my releases through other things, I get my rest through other things and my therapy through other things. I didn't go into this thinking I would get any rest or any therapy. So I am feeling what all the other motherfuckers feel that love this shit. But I'm humbled by it so it's a really nice process; crazy but really nice.
Riky Rick
© Mpumelelo Macu
On curating Cotton Fest
A lot of them (artists) is word of mouth and a lot of them is people that I actually have relationships with. I think I've been lucky to be able to build relationships with a lot of younger artists so automatically when I do something, I've got to put on my little homies. But I trust anybody I come across in the streets that has energy for a new sound or a new artist doing some dope shit. I like putting my energy into those things, into discovering other people's passion, people who take their passion seriously, I like being involved in that process, it's fun.
On discovering music
Everybody gets introduced to music in a different way. So some people get introduced to it through surfing the web, some people get forwarded it on Whatsapp, or BBM it was back in the day, or whatever it is. And some people discover artists that they begin to love through festivals. So, when we don't have festivals where your general person would think it's risky to have that person on their line-up or on a stage, people never discover new artists with a live format. Some people are stronger live. Maybe their music is not as strong, or not as clean or not mastered or mixed in the best way, it's not as palatable when you're doing it that way, but when you see them live you can fall in love with them. So it's very important to have that platform.
Riky Rick
© Mpumelelo Macu
On success
Success for me is really if you did something cool that you look back on and you're not like "Ah, I shouldn't have done that." Anything you do that you feel like "Damn that was a ride," that's success for me. There's no balance because every shot you make you… Michael Jordan's field goal percentage is 30.1%. Steph Curry who is the best shooter ever, his three-point percentage is maybe 40%, so out of every ten shots he takes he's going to miss six. You might not feel it on six of them, you'll feel it on the other three. They all count because we're keeping the stats.
