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Music

Ramriddlz, Whose Song Was Covered by Drake, Gives Us His First Interview

The 21-year-old Mississauga native told us what life has been like since Drake and OVO may or may not have discovered him.

Photo courtesy of Daily Vice

Up until a few months ago, Ramriddlz was an unknown 21-year-old Mississauga native whose video for “Sweeterman” showed all of the fun activities one could partake in when living in Toronto’s west-end borough, like partying in various McMansions. You could have assumed through the song’s references to “Luxor and Aswan” that Ramy’s heritage was Egyptian, but not much else was known. The song’s lyrics revolved mostly around dick jokes, either about how girls “can't handle [his] wiener” or his “insta D.” But then Drake premiered his own remix to the song on OVO Sound radio, and a deluge of fans rushed to find out who Ramriddlz was.

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As it turns out, he’s not big on revelations. When he came into the Vice office in Toronto, we asked about how Drake and the OVO camp found out about his song, but unfortunately he said that he’s not allowed to say anything about it. What we did manage to find out is that he deleted the original video and re-uploaded it in May of this year, but when asked why he did that, he took a long pause before answering a different question altogether. Reading between the lines, it would appear that someone stumbled onto the early version of the video and asked him to take it down until the timing was better suited.

So with the strict condition that we were not allowed to ask him anything about Drake, OVO, or being discovered by Drake and OVO, we spoke to the 21-year-old about what he was allowed to tell us. He still lives in Mississauga with his parents, he’s in his third year at Ryerson University studying “like fucking web design and fucking graphics,” and his parents didn’t even know he filmed the video at his house until one of his mother’s friends alerted her to the fact. Although he may not be much of a Talkerman, Ramiddlz explained what the title of his mixtape P2P means, how excited he is for his first show on August 1st at Adelaide Hall, and whether or not someone can simply become a “Sweeterman”

Noisey: How did you get the name Ramriddlz?
Ramy: My name is Ramy and I write riddles.

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What’s your favourite riddle?
There’s a few riddles man, a few of them.

Give us one.
I don’t know if this is a riddle, but it’s “get right before you get left.” I don’t know if it’s a riddle.

How did you get into music?
It kind of just like happened, it wasn’t anything planned. I never really wanted to be an artist, I just had an idea for a song and ran with it. About two years ago, through a close friend and producer [Jordan Francis] who owns this studio up in Brampton [called Wavelab] I went and chilled with no real intention of recording anything, and then I just felt some type of way, caught a quick vibe and then just came up with the track.

Are you still in school?
Yeah, I go to Ryerson University for Graphic communication Management.

So after you made “Sweeterman” did you decide you wanted to pursue a career as a musician?
No, I made the song and then during summer of last year I was like “damn I should make a video” and then I did that. So for a while I was just sitting on it; every now and then when I was on the train coming home from school I’d edit it here and there. I’d bring my camcorder with me when I’d go to different functions and record different stuff for it too. Whether that be different parties I went to, I would literally just put the song on and was like “yo, we’re gonna record this, are you girls cool with being in the video,” and that’s it. There was no direction or plan, we just shot a bunch of scenes and chopped it up.

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Continued below…

Can you talk about how the song got into Drake’s hands? Because we saw the Oliver Instagram comment, was that the first inkling that you got that they were interested?
Well, I put the video up and then took it down.

Why did you take it down?
They hit me up and said this was some fire. I guess he was just a fan of the music and he saw something in the song.

Is that what inspired you to put together the P2P EP?
Well yeah, it was the feedback and people were like “damn you should make other tracks” which is something I had never thought about at the time. Eventually, I linked up with a producer named Jaegen who went to Ryerson with me. He sent me a few beats and then I kind of just fucked around and made some more tracks. I pretty much made the entire EP in a month with the purpose of making tracks for the summer time for the sweeter fans to jam to.

Photo courtesy of Daily Vice

How did you come up with the title of the track and the EP?
Ok so “Sweeterman”—it’s actually funny how this happened—I was talking to this girl and she literally was like “you’re a sweeterman.” Kind of everything that happens in the song is based on an experience that I had [with this girl], like when i say “Shawty too fly though, ass from Cairo” that’s real.

So you actually texted her “she can’t handle my wiener”?
Definitely not. It’s funny, that wiener line wasn’t going to go in the song, I didn’t want it in there at all, but all my friends were like damn you have to keep it in. The song was initially ten minutes long, even after I chopped it up so there were a lot of bars that didn’t make it. Some lines that if you heard, weiner would be nothing to you.

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How does one become a Sweeterman?
You can’t just become a sweeterman. You have to be chosen, facts.

Does the title of the EP come from a special place of significance?
No, not really. The title is P2P, it stands for pussy too pink.

What do your parents think of this?
I don’t talk to my parents about anything, to be honest, they have no idea about any of this. They’ve seen the video, just because one of my mom’s friends showed it to her and she was definitely displeased because some of the scenes are shot at my house and she didn’t know.

How did you feel about your song being on the OVO radio show?
It was cool for it to be played around the world.

How have people changed since you made “Sweeterman”?
I guess when something like this happens you get to see who your real friends are and who just wants to be in your presence for benefits and shit.

Do you want to make music full time?
I have no expectation and I’m gonna keep making music but I’m not going to set any goals for myself because I don’t want to set any expectations.

Jabbari Weekes really needs to get a new Twitter handle - @DaysAndWeekes