Radamiz – Mindfulness of a Young Artist
Radamiz Rodriguez has been rapping since he was 12 years old. In 2016, he released his first full-length album, Writeous while balancing a college degree and a day job. Since then, he’s started pursuing his rap career full-time and put out Nothing Changes If Nothing Changes (2019) late last year. A creative to the core, Radamiz is not only a rapper but a photographer, creative director, poet and Mogul Club member. Featured on Hot 97’s “Who’s Next”, this Bed-Stuy native is an artist to pay attention to. In this interview he shares his wisdom on making daydreams come true through a mindful mantra of self-accountability, solitary strolls in the city, and finding a home in friends and collaborators.
How was your recent album release at Rough Trade?
I mean that shit is dope, it’s insane when you focus on a project for a while and a couple a hundred people come out and they know your words and they’re there for you. You just feel it in the room, like even if I’m not engaging with people directly before the show you can just tell the people are here for you, it’s like a birthday party, it’s crazy.
Do you feel like your creative process has changed since your first full-length album in 2016?
When you’re a creative at some point you have to take whatever your big step is. For me that was my 2016 album where I’m saying whatever happens from here let me at least put my best foot forward with whatever I have at the moment and just like declare this is my path. Then with this last project the intention was just way different. The first one was kind of like a college thesis, then this one feels like a real career. So I treated this one more like a specific introduction as opposed to just getting the nuance and the vibe of who Radamiz is. With that comes trust, openness, vulnerability to the past and being willing to share your story.
When you worked a day job, balancing your own work seemed to leave little time for yourself, how did you combat burnout?
I mean, I released my 2016 album when I was working at Opening Ceremony. I had been working on it prior to that because I was still at NYU but yeah you burn out. But for me I have always been good at prioritizing my music regardless of working 4-5 days a week. Definitely from last year to now, the biggest leap honestly was that I didn’t have the mental power to give it my all. But I always say this: at any job that you do, outside of what your dream passion is normally you day dream. Normally if you’re having a tough day, you think about what you would rather be doing. In the bad situations you learn what you actually want, so go do that. For me I learned that early. But then you don’t turn away knowledge and you don’t turn away where you can learn from. Even though OC wasn’t directly on some music shit, just seeing from a designer’s perspective, curation from the store itself, I just feel like I can apply that shit to myself.
You have a collective called Mogul Club, could you tell me more about that?
Well my last album is called Nothing Changes, that quote is not something I made up, that quote is something I took upon myself and applied to me. What that does is self-accountability, and it’s taking accountability for your decisions and a direction that you want your future to go. So with me and the circle like Mogul Club, we started a majority of us from 9th grade, and I think part of that was keeping ourselves accountable of each other’s greatness, or what each other’s perspective on what talent executed on a high level can look like because you can’t do it by yourself. We’re like an energy group. If someone’s battery needs to be charged a bit, here is the circle. At the end of the day, everybody has their own goals and we’re just at service for each other.
To speak more specifically on this issue’s theme of creative mindfulness, we’ve talked about hustling and making connections. You seem to be always kind of doing ten things at once. So what do you do to slow down?
I’m a loner, I find time to walk, I find time to not do shit, and not talk to anybody. If I want to read my book, or if I just want to play games on my phone, but I do so but intentionally. It’s literally just to focus on something that isn’t what is on my mind 24/7. There’s meditation and I’ve been taking up yoga. I don’t even listen to music when I’m on the go anymore, I’m just paying attention to my thoughts. People think recharging means you take a moment to sit on the tree stump, reflect on life and journal. Like that’s work too, recharge to me is focus on one thing at a time. Because it’s not about how much you can do efficiently, it’s about how well you can execute what you decide to do, not that you just decided to do things at all.
Do you feel like that feeds into your creative process?
Well I pray a lot, if I’m stressed I put it into words and I say it out loud. If I’m grateful I put it into words and say it out loud; If I’m happy I say it; if I have a problem; if I have a desire; if I have a goal; if I have to visualize my success I take time. It’s physically taxing work and that’s why a lot of the times people are prone to. It exhausting to use your imagination; it exhausts you to problem solve; it exhausts you to dig through. Or just like checkpoints as opposed to solutions. It’s like, as opposed to the answer sheet sometimes the songs are just the sheet, it’s just where everything is written on.
If you could give a final piece of advice to people pursuing their dreams, what would it be?
Admit what you’re doing wrong, there’s nothing that I can tell you that’s going to get more to the point than that. Admit how you’re fucking up. Admit that you lowered your standards for yourself and did something that you knew you should have just said no to. There are so many things that we let slide and we expect to be, and it’s kind of like we want to be called out for something for it to be addressed. A lot of the times people do not admit, they blame. And that’s what my album is about, it’s about addressing my past to kind of respectfully leave it in the past and move forward, but it itself embodied the last three years of me where I was. The size of your ego is the distance between you and god, because the ego is something that puffs itself up, the ego creates false narratives to make you feel better. The more you can deplete the ego’s presence on a consistent basis in your work, the more vulnerability you have with the nuances that make life special which is what your listener will connect to.
So for the last closing question on mindfulness, I wanted to ask for your wisdom on the winter blues…
The winter forces you to face yourself. I think that’s what people don’t like. There’s loneliness because you need the solitary moments to face the reflection of your year. Don’t feel bad about what didn’t get done, like thank god we have seasons to remind us that time passes. So for me, I look at that as like free therapy. The winter forces you to be inside, it sits you down in pain, in cold, but you get the time to reflect on where you are in your life, and you get the time to reflect on what you don’t like. Don’t run away from all the knowledge and beauty and realization. People just misunderstand it because they don’t like what comes up. It’s like when you get stung by a bee and then you have to take out the stinger. There’s the stinger, it popped out of your skin, thank god I know what to heal now and how to move forward. Most people know it but for some reason, once November hits you think you’re sad, it’s like no bro, you’re just preparing for the next phase of your life and there are things you have to address and here they all are, feel them. Feel them and never feel it again. We’re tougher than what we give ourselves credit for.
Check out the latest album: Nothing Changes if Nothing Changes – here
Words: Sheenie Yip
Photography: Andy Jackson
