“What’s up doc?”
Raised by TV, the new album by local Richmond artists Raycizm and Yogamuffin, speaks to the twisted emotions of millennials experiencing 90s era nostalgia because they just realized the world is a lot more fucked up than they knew when they were kids.
“What’s up doc?”
Raised by TV, the new album by local Richmond artists Raycizm and Yogamuffin, speaks to the twisted emotions of millennials experiencing 90s era nostalgia because they just realized the world is a lot more fucked up than they knew when they were kids.
The project, which dropped last month, begins with the iconic Bug’s Bunny quote, and from there launches into “Helga Pataki”, a dark and deeply thoughtful rhyme that sets the tone of the album with the plea “please don’t beat your kids, the police will do that for you”.
“I go on Facebook, on the internet, on the news and there’s kids getting run around by police all the time,” said Raymon Johnson, who goes by Raycizm. “It’s confusing. It makes you angry. It makes you sad. It makes you depressed. It makes you feel all of these emotions and I wanted to just start it off, first thing, ‘please don’t beat your kids the police will do that for you.’”
Last year Johnson started performing under the name Raycizm after the release of his break-out album, “INtuition”, around the same time that Kyle Rudd adopted the persona Yogamuffin in producing his album “Blueberry”.
“I saw [Yogamuffin] perform at a house show and it was like a spiritual experience it was crazy and I remember I just sat down and talked to him about the idea and he was just so for it,” Raycizm said.
Yogamuffin produced both the music and artwork for Raised by TV by combining his contemporary style with symbols of the 90s. The album cover features a little papercut portrait of Raycizm and Yogamuffin in front of the Looney Tunes background, and he created the music for Raised by TV by intertwining modern beats and audio editing tools with classic 90s sound bites.
“We’re using a lot of samples because we thought that a dusty vibe would accomplish that,” said
Yogamuffin. “I tried to tell my side of the story through sort of like the emotion of the music, and things like the Spongebob clip coming in, that’s like my favorite Spongebob song ever.”
The pair started collaborating on Raised by TV in the spring of last year, after Raycizm approached Yogamuffin with the concept for their 90s reminiscent project.
“He pretty much had both of the albums written already before he even contacted me about it so the music kind of like guided the progression of the album, but the lyrics were like the seed,” Yogamuffin said.
Raycizm describes Raised by TV as a period piece because it applies specifically to the experiences of the millennial generation today, especially that of young black men in an era where young black men are being very publicly and frequently killed.
Growing up in Chesapeake, Raycizm was relatively sheltered to the reality of racism before moving away to pursue a theatre degree at VCU. He had some experiences with “police and people having stereotypical views” during college, and said that awakening was “like getting over a hill, seeing that the world’s on fire and they gave you a hose to put it out”.
“It makes you feel worthless, it makes you feel like at any moment it could happen to you and you’re just another name on a t-shirt,” Raycizm said. “We’re just trying to tell the truth about everything that’s going on through lyric and use all the space that we have very effectively and very purposefully.”
The album mixes aspects of hip hop, indie rock, spoken word poetry, theatre and beat music into a 62-minute musical extravaganza. Raycizm’s voice transitions easily from spitting rhymes to gentle crooning and he uses that range to his advantage by developing catchy, harmonic choruses surrounded by deep, snarling spoken word poetry.
Several songs on the album act in part or wholly as theatrical interludes, which suck the audience back into the vibe of the album and reinforce the emotions that inspired it. For example, “RUN II” begins with a the classic Mufasa quote “A king’s time as ruler rises and falls with the sun” followed by the frantic sounds of someone waking up late and hurriedly getting ready.
“That’s how it feels in my head a lot and that’s how it feels in a lot of people’s heads it’s like frantic it’s like the feeling of being late but we’re so young,” said Raycizm. “I just know that when you’re first getting your feet in the water it’s gonna be cold you’re gonna be frantic you’re gonna be feeling worried and freaked out so you gotta run.”
Perhaps the most impressive aspect of this album is the lyrics, which are positively riddled with insightful hooks and verbal blows. In my personal favorite song off the album, “Pennies / / Nimbus” Raycizm raps,
“I’m black as a penny,
Proud of my copper skin,
Cops stop me like who polished this nigga?
There’s no apologies in ‘em.
I mean I’m almost free,
Father Abraham they made him look just like me.”
Raised by TV speaks to the nostalgia that the millennial generation has just grown old enough to feel towards their childhoods, and Raycizm’s words beautifully articulates the unique perspective of young black men today in a relatable and deeply insightful way.
“I was depressed for a long time and that’s probably why the music is a little dark,” he said. “We all feel depression in college but we’re all just trying to make it right now but it’s gonna be okay. I want everyone to know that through all of this you can listen to the project, feel all these different emotions, and come at the end and know that it’s going to be okay because we’re smart enough to know what’s going on.”
To listen to Raised by TV, visit https://soundcloud.com/raycizm/albums
