MUSIC By Alex Greene
R.U.D.Y
what we can’t see with our naked eye. You need ultraviolet light in order to illuminate certain things. That’s why crime scene investigations, they can discover the truth of what really happened. The stuff we hide, the stuff we don’t want people to see? That’s what the black light illuminates. It shows us truth. And I wanted my music to do that. I hear you name dropping Socrates in one rap. Oh yeah. ‘I’m trying to learn philosophies that Africans taught Socrates.’ I was a history major at the University of Memphis. I graduated last year. was a good way for me to feed My studies were mainly focused my fan base with records that on African-American history and weren’t really a project. Like African-American Studies. one-offs, loose records. There There’s also a political edge to your were some good songs in that lyrics. Confronting poverty and series. I’m thinking of starting it how it affects people on the level of up again. The reason I stopped the soul. was that I began to work on my Yeah, man. I grew up poor. I was project that I put out toward the born in Atlanta, but my dad is end of the year, Till We Open. from the South Side of Chicago. ‘Indestructible’ was the single. It My mom is from Gary, Indiana. R.U.D.Y was produced by my homie Lee And we moved there right after Mars, who’s a very important I was born. Then, when I was figure in helping me discover my 12, we moved to Glenwood Park in South Memphis. sound and who I am as an artist and a person. We grew Rough as Memphis is, compared to Gary, it’s still … well, real close over the last two years. I met him at work. He I’m grateful to be here. I’m grateful to have come from was listening to a Jay Z record on a forklift, and I started Gary because it taught me how to survive. I’ve had to do rapping along with it. It turned out we were both anime homework by candlelight, if my mom couldn’t pay the fanatics. That was really the glue for us, the fact that we light bill. The homework’s still gotta be done. And when loved anime so much. I’ve been into it since I was 9 or you walk out the house, you don’t dress like your situa10, and I’m 27 now. It’s a part of who I am. tion. You walk with dignity.” Most of your releases thus far have been produced by members of your collective, Black Light Entertainment. R.U.D.Y’s latest release is Till We Open. Watch for more What is that focused on? singles to drop around Valentine’s Day, and an EP proWhat is black light? And what does it do? It illuminates duced with IMAKEMADBEATS later in the year.
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o infinity and beyonnnnnnnd!” screams the chorus, over a deadstop Memphis beat that evokes wide, empty streets in the night. It’s not quite trap, but sonically, it paints a similar landscape. The singer’s voice tacks disarmingly between rap swagger and a questioning catch in the throat. And while the lyrics are tough-minded snapshots of a life steeped in poverty and casual crime, they just as often pull back to infinity, to reflect on the complexities. “I have no fear, even if I’m feeling fear, even if I feel afraid, I must still move in a maze.” The track is “Infinity Stones,” by the up-and-coming R.U.D.Y (no period after the Y), who really began upping his releases in 2020, the downtime of the quarantine age. R.U.D.Y, aka Rudolph Swansey Jr., carved out a niche for himself in the netherworld between the graphic grit of trap and something closer to knowledge rap, a rare combination.
J a n u a r y 2 8 - Fe b r u a r y 3 , 2 0 2 1
Memphis Flyer: You did a whole series of two- or threetrack EPs last year called Rudy Tuesday’s, volumes 1-7. How did they come about? R.U.D.Y: Rudy Tuesday’s was just something that I felt
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LEE MARS
Gritty, philosophical rap from the quarantine age.