What amazes me about music these days is how accessible it is. Anyone with access to an iPhone can create and upload their songs to a music platform for free, and get their work out there to millions of people. Rich Amiri is a prime example of using the 21st century to your advantage.
Growing up in Boston, Amiri was not in a typical environment that we think of when it comes to rap, meaning the Los Angeles’ or Atlanta’s of the world. Nevertheless his love for music prevailed, and he started off his career at a lunch table in high school, freestyling with his friends. The first time he actually recorded a song was in his friends’ makeshift studio that was a room solely comprised of GarageBand and his headphones.
While he has said that the first track he actually made was titled “Me For Me”, his first song to really breakthrough in the SoundCloud community was titled “For Me” and quickly massed thousands of listeners. Recently TikTok has become an extremely beneficial platform for new artists who have the opportunity to put out their music as ‘sounds’ and hopefully see them go viral in the backgrounds of user-created videos. Rich Amiri admits that he used TikTok to his advantage, and it helped him know exactly how to create his hit song “Never Fail” to fit the algorithm of the app and blow up.
In 2022 he released his debut album For The Better that was produced mainly by Taz Taylor of Internet Money and the 15 year old prodigy Maajins, with 8 tracks including features from other popular up and coming artists like SSGKobe, Summrs, Desire and jaydes. Amiri showcased his melodic and euphonious voice with this album, singing over the pluggnb production about what’s on his mind, whether it’s his desire for money or lost love from previous relationships. He set the bar high for himself, but evolving as an artist seems to come easy for him.
And the Evolution is clear on the accordingly titled album. The 12 song project includes a lot of new sounds for Rich Amiri, but somehow, he finds a way to make it all sound like he’s been using this sound his whole career. A majority of the songs were energetic, 808 dominated, switching up the flow from his previous album. Many artists who primarily rap over these beats let the production do most of the work, but Amiri finds a way to uniquely show off his voice on tracks such as “Don’t Feel Ya” and “Casket”. With Rich Amiri’s quick growth in popularity, he rolled out the album perfectly as it sets him up for a tour with an even more exciting potential set list.
Rich Amiri’s sound separates him from the rest of his class. He’s one of those artists that when a song of his comes on that I haven’t heard before, I know instantly it’s him. His mixture of pluggnb songs and raspy, but echoey melodies, allow him to really push the boundaries of hip-hop and experiment over virtually any beat his mind can fathom. One of his biggest strengths is that he cannot be boxed in one subgenre of rap. His songs vary from the bouncy and fun “Poppin” featuring Lil Tecca, to the alternative sounding “Keep All That”. He isn’t classified as a sad boy rapper, but his listeners know that he has no issue tapping into his emotions and wearing his heart on his sleeve which is apparent on his new project Evolution.
Amiri’s name has become household in the underground rap scene, but make no mistake it will soon be on everyone’s playlist throughout the industry.