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From growing up in the church where the atmosphere is rich with gospel to making pluggnb music, riph8kelly’s music journey is rich and certainly not over yet.
Riph8kelly (formerly known as h8kelly) is a 20-year-old artist, producer, and musician straight from Baltimore, Maryland. Despite being from the DMV, he gets much of his inspiration from artists like Ken Carson, Playboi Carti, and, especially, Destroy Lonely.
The inspiration for his name is pretty simple: for starters, his birth name is Kelly. The h8kelly alias came from a group chat of him and his friends, and the number came about when he was scrolling through instagram. The rip prefix would come after all of those, thus riph8kelly was born!
The young creative began his music journey really as a toddler. Kelly started playing drums as a toddler and piano at around nine or ten, both self-taught. For many years, he didn’t care much for rap and its subgenres.
Around middle school and entering high school, he began to resonate with him and asserted that it reminded him of rock: a genre that he was always very fond of.
Once Kelly had this revelation, he started grinding it out as a producer and as an artist. He made the decision to leave the college lectures and hit the studio, and he hasn’t looked back since.
Kelly has his own mode of operation when making his music, so he seldomly collaborates with other artists and producers.
Besides Opium artists like Carti, Ken Carson, and Destroy Lonely, Kelly is heavily inspired by Michael Jackson.
MJ would’ve been his dream collaboration if the late artist was still around.
The young producer is enamored by his sound and his drive, which gives him the same motivation to see his own songs through until they are complete.
The most rewarding part about making music, according to him, is the notion that his creations are all from scratch.
The same way a cook can enjoy their hard work and preparation, the same can be said about Kelly and his craft.
Music is the language by which he communicates from the heart and with great fluency.
Though he is taking a hiatus from music, riph8kelly released an EP, titled “Volume 1”. The EP is chock-full of trap and melodic rap sounds.
