By Alex Vega
Summer 2016 is in full swing. Your favorite ice cream truck in neighborhoods like Encanto and Skyline start serving a rediscovered need. But as temperatures rise, so do violent crime rates. The U.S. Department of Justice calls them ‘seasonal patterns’. However, statistical anomalies can become all too common occurrences in areas where gang culture pervades and regular people are in the wrong place at the wrong time. A local recording artist by the name of Ryan Anthony creates music in a space where both extremes are encompassed.
Fresh off the release of his new EP on June 7th, Ryan Anthony represents the everyday lifestyle of regular people. However, his success over the past couple of years is starting to separate him from the pack. The Spring Valley native has gone on tour with E-40 and Tech N9ne, collaborating on wax with them as well as other artists like The Game and Mitchy Slick. Despite his success, Ryan still stays connected to the community that raised him. In his music video for ‘Never Been’, released just hours before the EP, Ryan includes everyday men and women from neighborhoods affected by violence. They stand in solidarity, holding signs of protest in one hand. With the other hand, they raise a fist.
“I just wanted to portray that as a community we are one,” Ryan said. “The same struggles we watch others go through, we potentially will go through the same thing if we don’t get a handle on it.”
Mitchy Slick, the featured artist in ‘Never Been’ seems to think so as well. As quite arguably the most heralded San Diego rap artist of all time, Mitchy took an interest in Ryan early on which eventually led to a full on collaboration years later. However, as a member of the Lincoln Park Bloods, he recently sat down with Rebel Genius Records to discuss gang violence. He laments the process in which everyday people like Ryan can be unsuspectingly swallowed up by the gang lifestyle. Mitchy’s upbringing may shed some light on how these two vastly different men can connect.
He tells viewers how his story started out different from what one would expect. No members of his family were on crack or welfare. His grandfather was a doctor. His mother was a teacher and director for city colleges. But the mentality, for him, was not taught at home. It was instead learned in the streets, outside the range of parental supervision. But even a normal family with their regular set of ups and downs has a hand in turning one’s mind toward gang affiliation. This double-think can be easy to dismiss in our culture.
Ryan finds a way to make music that sits comfortably between these opposing ideas. He can put an artist like Mitchy on his record and sound as surprisingly put together as different corner pieces of the same puzzle. Perhaps no other song in Ryan’s catalog represents this duality better than the one presented midway through the EP.
“It’s hard to talk in depth about gang culture because I’m not in it or around it,” said Ryan. “I have a song on the Barely See The Beach EP titled ‘Square’ that really explains my upbringing around the gang culture.”
In the song, he raps about growing up as a regular kid in Southeast who is fascinated by the hood. Each verse is a story. The first talks about how he once was a getaway driver and subsequently grew paranoid on the way home. The second verse talks about a party near Helix High School. He answered the question of what set he claimed with a shrug. The third and final verse exposes his naïve attempts at becoming a drug kingpin by selling weed only to quit within a week. The music video expertly captures his knack for storytelling. The scenes for each verse are striking, involving enough characters and locations to make any independent artist on a budget admire the months of planning and development required.
His unrealized drug dealing aspirations and failed attempts at becoming ‘hood rich’ should not be brushed aside. Rather, these adolescent chronicles make him all the wiser and more opposed to what he may have been drawn to as a youth.
“Of course, I don’t condone violence,” he proudly declares. “Black on black hatred literally makes me sick to my stomach.”
Ryan is not solely focused on gang violence. Shortly after the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castille, Ryan released a new song titled, ‘Another N**** Dead.’ Not included on the EP, Ryan posted on Facebook that he initially didn’t release the song so as not to draw attention away from his newest project. But to soothe his malcontent, he felt like he had to put it in the universe. His songs are a product of his unmatched spontaneity, yet his musical output remains timely.
Despite current events, Ryan has been hitting the streets. For the past month or so, he’s handed out physical copies of the EP to each corner of the city. Every other day brings a new Facebook post, shouting out another satisfied customer. If that customer is unable to pay the full price for the CD, Ryan happily gives it to them for free. He wants his music to be heard by all. He even drives up to North County, a wealthier part of San Diego untouched by gang culture, to deliver CDs. The ability to touch and relate to the lives of regular, everyday people no matter where they’re from is remarkable.
You can stream the Barely See the Beach EP on Soundcloud or message Ryan directly for a physical copy. The full interview with Mr. Anthony is available below.
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1) Is there anything you can take from that experience and apply to San Diego’s music scene? What in your opinion separates us from other cities like LA or the Bay area?
I don’t know exactly what I’m doing, but I have an idea. I know where I want to get to, and I know how I want to get there. I don’t think the music scene in San Diego has anything wrong with it, except for the fact that we have a lack of consumer. Which is the most important part of becoming successful. Without a consumer, you have no outlet or revenue. There’s only a handful or artist in the ENTIRE history of SD hip-hop that the city has gravitated towards. When the city finds that someone that they put their faith into that represents the San Diego community, it’ll be a whole new ball game.
2) What is your relationship with Mitchy like? What was it like working with him on ‘Never Been’?
Slick been doing this longer than I’ve been an adult. He is the most notarized rapper from Daygo, hands down. The few times we crossed paths it was always mutual respect. When I first started to dabble in the music, Oso Ocean, who is Slick’s artist, was one of the first people to ever rap on one of my beats. So from there I think Slick saw the potential but that was like 5 years ago. As far as “Never Been” came about, I made the beat and instantly started chanting “you aint never been to the southeast” before I even finished the beat. After I recorded the choruses I already saw the vision of Slick being on the record. To me, it was the only way the song was going to really be something. So I reached out to him. He was with it. We hit the studio together. And here we are.
3) Your recent music videos, particularly ‘Never Been’, seem like they have politically charged undertones. Did you have any goal in mind with the visuals?
Before we even got in the studio together, I knew I wanted to shoot a video to it. I didn’t know how or what sort of concept but I knew I had to come up with something extremely dope that was relatable on all sides of the city, but also portray unity at the same time. During the summers of San Diego, particularly the South East, there’s always people that get killed by senseless violence or gang violence. That violence affects the entire community in one way or another. We lose loved ones and then retaliation occurs and then we’re stuck in the same cycle that we’ve been in for decades. I just wanted to portray that as a community we are one. The same struggles we watch others go through, we potentially will go through the same thing if we don’t get a handle on it.
4) What is it that you represent as a recording artist? What message do you want to communicate through your music?
I represent everyday. I represent the everyday lifestyle of regular people. I represent reality and the everyday struggles that come with it. I just want to be a relatable voice. I talk about my life, which isn’t luxurious. It isn’t extravagant. It isn’t always beautiful. I go through financial downfalls. I have fights with the mother of my child. Sometimes I don’t feel like I’ll ever be anything worth talking about. But i also have a tremendous amount of fun in life too. Life is full of ups and downs and I talk about it all. Good or bad.
5) What is your view on the current gang culture in San Diego? How does your music tie in with everything that’s going on?
I think everybody should be proud of where they come from and what area they represent. That’s what makes us all unique, and what makes San Diego, DA[Y]GO. Of course, I don’t condone violence. Black on black hatred literally makes me sick to my stomach. It’s hard to talk in depth about gang culture because I’m not in it or around it. I have a song on the Barely See The Beach EP titled “Square” that really explains my upbringing around the gang culture.
