Ryki chats about her new self-titled EP

Ryki is a South African pop star on the rise.

All photos taken by: Waldo Pretorious

She puts out high quality productions that feature some strong songwriting and storytelling. Ryki is making the most of her deal with Universal Music and is constantly working on refining her appeal and style as an artist.

She talks about her debut self titled EP , what she liked about working with Sketchy Bongo, the inspiration for her breathy and smokey singing style, and how she is looking forward to only getting better as the years pass and the Ryki idea grows.

Given your previous success with singles what do you think your fans and followers could be expecting from your debut EP?

They might recognise a different side of me that they haven’t heard. I feel like I grow more to the artist I want to become with every song I make. There’s growth in between each song because they were written in different times of my career as well. There are definitely more songs like the ones my followers heard before so I’m sure they’ll be happy.

How did you come about naming the release ‘Throw You Down’ and what inspired the creative vision behind its production?

Bubele and David played the track they prepared for our studio session and I felt this dark atmosphere and linked it to a phrase I wrote a few months before. It fitted perfectly and we held onto that style while writing the rest of the song.

What do you enjoy most about working with Sketchy Bongo and what about the producer surprised you while working together?

I most definitely did! I remember him calling me the most entertaining person he has ever met when I started getting comfortable around him. We both like working really fast and had a lot of fun with the music we made. He surprised me when he slept on the floor while I was writing through the night until the morning. Out of nowhere he spoke in his sleep and said “this is dope!” and slept further. #SleepyBongo Plus how he randomly walks around and Snapchats everything!

What attracts you to the abstract and why do you find yourself drawn to this artistically when making music videos?

I’ve always liked the unusual and doing the unexpected. I was so glad that I could finally portray the image that fitted with the brand I wanted all along in my music video. Throw You Down’s music video is exactly who I am and the style I like.

While you were working on this EP with David Balshaw and Bubele Booi how did their vision match up with yours and is there an interesting story behind the production of this EP?

I guess we just clicked as people which made it so much easier to work together. They filled the gaps of things that I lack of and we made such cool a team effort. They are great producers as well as songwriters! There is actually an interesting story, one of the songs I wanted on my EP had some complications and we decided to put a filler in and register it on iTunes so long. So the three of us basically had two days to make a song that’s already on the EP. Whether we liked the song or not. We had one chance! The song’s name is ‘Bad Intentions’ and we all were super pleased with it! Thinking about making it the next single…

You have a signature kind of smoky and breathy vocal. Why do you enjoy singing in this style and when would you say you adopted this way of using your voice?

Thank you so much. I enjoy singing like that because it’s completely honest and effortless. I usually had like a rich vocal, almost like a female John Legend, Duffy, or Amy Winehouse. I developed an accent while singing at a super young age because of the music I listened to. As I became older I toned it down a bit and focused more on the soft vocal techniques inside my voice and that’s what you guys are listening to now. My voice changes a little bit everyday becoming stronger with practice, and with experience it takes more of the tone on that’s my trademark.

Ryki chats about her new self-titled EP