Ahead of 617 Day, a day in which WERS celebrates local talent and businesses, Web Service Coordinator, Fenton Wright, is sitting down with the artists performing to talk to them about what music and Boston means to them. Today we introduce you to an all encompassing artist, Riah.
Fenton: First of all, it’s nice to meet you. Thank you for doing 617 Day for us. I just wanted to set the tone a little bit, see how you’re feeling about the day.
Riah: Feeling good. Really looking forward to it. I’ve never performed on as big of an outdoor stage before, so it’s going to be a first time. It’s going to be really fun.
Fenton: A lot of people have been telling me that they are really looking forward to performing outside.
Riah: Yeah, hoping for a sunny day!
Fenton: I’m in Tennessee right now, so it’s always sunny. But I’m hoping it’s good there. Yeah.
RIah: Boston has its days, so we’ll see.
Fenton: Also kind of just to get a feel for your music for listeners, I was wondering how you would categorize it? Because I have Apple Music and it categorizes you as pop which I don’t think fully encompasses you. When I was listening to it, I feel like I got a little bit of some R&B in there, along with, indie and like a couple other genres blended together.
Riah: That kind of is how I would describe it. But that’s the tricky thing when people ask me that. The whole umbrella, if I really were to try to get the whole view, would be art pop, R&B, neo soul. The majority of my influences absolutely come from the world of direct R&B, but my sound specifically is mixed in with a bit more pop. Right? It sounds a little bit more indie, more alt.
I would say generally alt R&B, but if I had to shrink it, but, uh, it’s definitely a mix of stuff.
Fenton: Do you have any artists from any genre that you would say, like, maybe not necessarily go in and be like, “I want to sound like this,” but someone that just gives you inspiration for maybe a chorus like this or a bridge.
Riah: Absolutely. And it depends on what part of their artistry inspires me. But definitely a lot of artists. One that I particularly love is Orion Sun. I think her work is fantastic. One song even played a role in inspiring one song of mine. The song called “Dragon” that I wrote was in part inspired by a song of hers where the first line goes, “I fell in love in the sky on the back of a dragon.”
And I kind of loved that image and was going through something in my own life that kind of made me, you know, think of it and be inspired by it. And that led to me creating a whole song on my own. So, Orion Sun, SZA, love SZA big, big fan. I love this artist called Greek. And then Frank Ocean, Daniel Caesar always have been inspirations. I listen to them all the time.
Fenton: You kind of touched on it a little bit there, but with lyrics, and your lyricism, a lot of artists want to be direct sometimes. Some are on the metaphorical side. I’m kind of wondering, how do you like to balance that to get, I guess, your intentions?
Riah: So every song is open to the interpretation of the listener, of course, but I certainly have my own interpretations. Right? And I don’t necessarily like to be 100% direct, although a lot of my lyrics are very clear. It’s very clear, you know, what inspired the song? So I like to write from my own experiences, and sometimes I embellish on those things, and it makes it more of a fun songwriting experience, but I don’t make anything up. I don’t think there’s any songs that I’ve, you know, taken no inspiration from my own personal life.
So it ends up being a mix of them once I get into the fun songwriting part of it. I get to play with words and lyrics and rhythms. But for the most part, it does come from me.
Fenton: How long have you been in Boston? I know a lot of people are here for college? We have some older artists as well who have been around the scene since like the 80s.
Riah: I was born and raised in Boston, so I’ve spent most of my life here. I ended up spending a little bit of time outside of Boston after graduating from university. I went to BU, but for the most part of my life, I’ve been in Boston.
Fenton: I know it’s something that sometimes our listeners wonder about and me as well, but how would you kind of say, growing up in Boston shaped not only yourself, but also like the music that you make, because I know you said a lot of your music is experience based. How does Boston come across in that?
Riah: Good question. For the most part, I would say, honestly, growing up wise, I was more inspired or more surrounded by Cape Verdean music than necessarily American Boston music, because that’s where my family’s from. My entire family’s from there. So, you know, family parties and things. That’s the music that I was listening to.
And then it was more when I got to college that I started trying to listen to a broader range of artists and also build up my own category of music I’m familiar with. And from there, my own sound started to come out. I really only began my professional musical career after college. So at that point I had already left Boston. So it is a mix of, of things. But from my Boston time, it mostly was Cape Verdean.
Fenton: I mean, how did you kind of decide to pursue music? Because, I mean, I know a lot of people going into college like me, don’t really know what I want to do fully yet, but I feel like it’s a really stressful time. So how do you kind of come to that conclusion after college?
Riah: So neither did I. I had no idea what I wanted to really do in college. I was undecided for as long as my university allowed me to be undecided. I finally settled on international relations. And that has nothing to do with what I’m doing now. But the experiences that I got from college are really what primed me for the path that I ended up taking. So even if I’m not directly using my degree, I am using the experiences that I got as a result of going to the university that I did.
Yes. To answer your question, I decided after graduating. “Hey, you know I did it. I got my bachelor’s first generation in my family to do that.” I wanted to do that accomplishment for myself and for them. But then I gave myself the permission essentially to really chase being an artist after completing my higher education.
Fenton: I’ve been asking everyone this, but do you have any. specific places that you would recommend them to go check out? If they come in on the day of anything that you would be like, “Hey, this is a good spot,” because I know we all have our own little places that we recommend to people.
Riah: You know what? I want to do this, but I also don’t want them to have a line. Okay. This is something that I actually recently rediscovered. I used to go there all the time in college, but some of the best fro-yo I’ve had in my life is from Cafe 472 on Comm Ave. I went there a couple times in the past month just because we’ve been blessed with some nice days, and I was just brought back to school years, eating that ice cream. It’s so good. It’s so good. So Cafe 472 was my little hole in the wall kind of spot that I like to go to when I’m around the area.
Fenton: Yeah, I feel like I always gravitate towards record stores but I don’t like to tell people because then prices are going to go up and I’m going to go in there and see people, and they’re going to have taken every single record that I’ve ever wanted.
Riah: Fair enough. That’s the thing. I feel like anytime I see a line going out of a business, I’m thinking “someone posted about that.”
Fenton: I’ve also been asking people if they have any modern artists that you draw inspiration from as well?
Riah: I would say honestly, the artists that I mentioned, two specifically Orion Sun and Greek, I believe are around my age. I would be shocked if they were not, but, yeah, those two are like I said, close in age to me and are making really amazing music that I’m personally a fan of and also like to draw inspiration from. So I would say I look up to them as artists. Definitely.
Fenton: And then also, Is there anything specifically going into 617 Day and beyond that you want people to know about you and your music?
Riah: Well, leading up to it, I’m really excited to be able to share my music with anyone who’s walking by in that area of the city of Boston. At the core of why I make music, it is to heal. It is to heal myself. Because music is how I process everything that’s going on around me. And it feels really amazing when people reach out saying, you know, my song or my album, help them go through something. And that is ultimately what I hope to do the most with my music. I don’t, you know, if I can reach more ears and I can help heal more hearts that would be fantastic. And that is why I’m doing this. Really. It feels good for me, but I love to make other people also, um, have something to lean on.
Fenton: I know that felt kind of like a wrapping up question and, but then I had another question just now. So, I know you kind of touched on it there, but do you find music to be more of a personal relationship between you and the music or kind of like you said, do you want it to be more of like an open book kind of thing where anyone can kind of find that connection to it. Because it sounds deeply personal for you, but do you intend to make it deeply personal for others, or do you just write what you’re kind of feeling at the moment?
Riah: I believe the two are so intertwined I can’t really unravel them. So what’s going on to me, sure is unique to my personal life, but I’m going through things that quite literally millions of people go through all the time. And so, because my music is so personal to me, I hope that it is personal to other people who are going through the same thing. Or even if you’re not going through exactly the same things that I speak about in my lyrics, if it’s something that’s parallel, if it’s something that’s, you know, related and you see yourself in it. I can’t detangle my personal experiences, really from those of others when it comes to crafting something that I really care about, I’m doing it for myself. But I’m also doing it for the people who, um, find joy in listening to it.
Fenton: Thank you so much!
Riah: You take care. And you have a good rest of your week.
