There’s the DMV…there’s Maryland…and then there’s Baltimore City.
If anyone is a native of the infamous area, then they know the weight of the previous statement. The Baltimore Uprising of 2015 is a daily reality for Baltimore City natives, if not leagues worse. A dark reality like that does not happen overnight however, and Baltimore creatives Rahkai (Rapper) and Tay Shakir (Producer) capture the essence of the city’s problems as well as progressive solutions with their forthcoming collaboration EP, WELCOME TO KHAOS.
While in China, I was able to get an exclusive interview with the duo ahead of the release.
We started by exchanging pleasantries via WeChat and with a brief dialogue on how it’s important to Baltimore’s growth for the creative art community to rotate resources and skill sets in order to create an everlasting ecosystem of artistic excellence. From the beginning, one could sense the inherent balance between the two with Rahkai as the more extroverted individual and Tay as the more calculated, carefully worded individual. Both energies reflected their great work and vast intelligence embedded into the project as well.
MEET THE DUO WITH A HEART FOR THE CITY AND THE MUSIC:
Rahkai”(Kyai Richard):
Rahkai, born Kyai Richard, hails from the Southside area of Baltimore City, Cherry Hill to be exact, if the deep Baltimore accent didn’t give it away early in the interview. Rahkai’s origins give light to the reality of many Baltimore City youth throughout the decades that’s dangerously canon. He went to Patapsco Elementary School and Patapsco Middle School until they both were shut down because….you know…Baltimore. “My teachers helped me get out of there,” Rahkai recants to me before his tone changes.
While 13 years old, he witnessed violence first hand with a drive-by intended for someone else that shot up the porch of the candy lady in the neighborhood. No one was killed, but with Rahkai and his family’s otherwise peaceful jamming and dancing in their backyard this was Rahkai’s first flirt with the violent aura of the city that disrupts innocence at any given moment. Baltimore’s reality furthered interrupted the bliss of his youth with his brother even getting into activities in the streets of the city.
“It motivated me to get out of Cherry Hill.”
-Rahkai
The Baltimore City hustle as well as a progressive mindset allowed for Rahkai to test into City College in Baltimore, graduate with a 3.9 weighted GPA from the high school, and make money for himself as the “snack man” of the school until he made it to Washington College.
By this point, Rahkai’s story became more of a reflection of Baltimore adult life than I initially perceived. In my graduate program at Bowie State University in Maryland, my professor would discuss his previous time teaching at Coppin State University as a History professor. This professor would tell me how he would meet the absolute brightest, motivated students from Baltimore City taking agency in their own lives. However, because of the distractions of the city-whether it be gun violence, drug abuse affecting members of their community including loved ones, horrendous housing conditions, lack of academic opportunities, etc.-the bright students’ performances were detrimentally affected beyond repair, causing many students native of the area to fall back into the abyss of the ghetto they tried so hard to work themselves out of. Rahkai, in the interview, with lament, speaks of his friend getting shot and killed the week of one of his biggest presentations in college, causing him to ultimately fail a key portion of the presentation. “I gave up,” Rahkai says describing the situation. Coupled with having to return home to help ailing members of his family, Rahkai left school. However, and not to sound like a Disney Channel Original Movie, the music never left him. His freestyles from his archives were released and were making waves around the city as his craft continued to grow greater and greater in direct relation to the struggle that the devil tried to impede him with. It is during this development that in comes another light of the city, Tay Shakir.
Tay Shakir (Tayvon Cole):
Tay Shakir, born Tayvon Cole, makes everyone in the chat start off with a laugh by saying without hesitation “My life was pretty forgetful,” in recanting his life’s path to current day after Rahkai’s enthralling story. He started his story from where the two Baltimoreans met on the lacrosse team during high school and during their Junior year when the academic struggle motivated them both to stick together, with music being the gorilla glue to their coordinating energies. When Tayvon moved on to Towson University while Rahkai moved on to Washington College, the two stayed in contact and influenced each other’s hustle on a high-accountability level: a new verse a day for Rahkai and a new beat a day for Tay Shakir. Grinding hard with the love of music and stories gained from the knowledge of the city, the duo are taking the image of Baltimore into their own hands by conjuring a new narrative and light for their hometown.
WHAT TO EXPECT FROM THE PROJECT:
WELCOME TO KHAOS is the EP by the duo releasing soon to chronicle the grim mythos of Baltimore City. In the style of the African Griot, the project is able to eloquently use the lives of both creatives and the community they represent as muses in articulating problems and sustainable solutions in the same vein. Rahkai includes Baltimore concepts, lingo and varied lyricism over versatile beats by Tay Shakir and production/lyrical features from their inner circle. To finish off the interview, the duo gave one last word of reassurance to listeners of the tape and natives of Baltimore (or any ghetto of the world for that manner) to transcend their situations:
“Put more faith in God than you do in Man…Never let fear control your actions.”
Catch the light within WELCOME TO KHAOS coming soon! Follow the two on Social Media and support the movement.
Rahkai: Instagram and Twitter - @kyyng_kai
Tay Shakir: Instagram: @tay.shakir, Twitter: @ShakirTay
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