When I first met Rivan, I was sitting at a cafe table wearing a T-shirt that had cows on it and the word  “VERMONT” printed plainly across the bottom (thank you Allie Fountaine). By the end of our first conversation, I found out Vermont was the state Rivan had spent much of his life- attending college, exploring the scene, and eventually starting a musical project of his own.

 A month later, Rivan and I sat down together again, this time at Passionfruit Coffee in Bed Stuy, to have a more in-depth conversation about his recent release “Lemonade,” and everything leading up to it. 

You can listen to “Lemonade” while you read this interview!

I listened to your new song, but also all of your Spotify discography. So first, I wanted to ask about the new song, "Lemonade." It's very nostalgic. It feels like it’s about where you grew up. Was it Vermont? Or somewhere else?

Yeah. Well, if you would have read the lyrics…. [laughter]

Hey! I did.

"Nostalgia waltz round my dome like
Go niño
Like go niño
Oh, California, I hold tight
Go niño
Let go niño"
...

Yeah, it's about when I grew up in California, for a little bit, when I was a kid. I lived there when I was like three to about seven years old. Orange County is where I lived when I was younger… but Burlington,  that's where I'm born and raised. I lived in Toronto for a little bit, too.

That's very cool. Drake lived there, and we're also at Passionfruit Coffee. Sorry—very Drake day today. Is Toronto where you kicked off as a musician? 

Well, I was seven when I moved back to Vermont. I started doing music actually a little later than I would have liked. I started doing music when I was a sophomore or junior in high school. I did poetry starting out in ninth grade. And then I realized everything I was writing was a rap, so I transitioned over. I did the talent show in sophomore year of high school, and that was like my debut. I did an original. It was this song called School Song.

So, in Vermont, that's where you went to school and spent your teenage years, right? 

Yeah. 

So what was the scene like there? And how do you feel like it shaped you as a rapper?

It made me very dependent on finding inspiration through the internet because there's like a hip-hop culture, but it's obviously not as big as pretty much any other city in the US. There are creatives everywhere. But for hip-hop, I definitely had to do my due diligence and research. Luckily, my dad is a DJ, and my mom is cool as fuck. So I was put on a lot of really cool music very early on. When I was younger, I'd say it was a lot of Daft Punk and College Dropout Kanye. And I listened to a lot of Sade when I was younger. I would go to bed every single night listening to Lover’s Rock.

I'm really jealous. So when you got to college, was there like a scene in Burlington, or did you still kind of have to venture out off the campus?

Burlington has a very good DIY music scene because it's a college town. So there's a lot of punk bands, surf rock bands, and stuff like that. There were a lot of house shows. I got a lot of mentoring from my friends who were seniors when I was a freshman or sophomore. And I would just do basement shows with punk bands. And I would do my trap shit. People would watch punk bands and mosh, that sort of vibe. And then I sort of picked up what I learned from them. So when I was like a junior, I would throw my own house shows and stuff.

Are people moshing at your shows?

1,000%. Especially because I would just do all my hype songs, and little white kids lose their fucking minds. I mean, they know about shit because of the internet. So they did get sturdy. They like listening to Pop Smoke [laughing]; they think I'm like the same as Pop Smoke.

Right now, one of my favorite songs of yours is “paper tabs.” End of 2023, you put that out. You said earlier your new stuff is some of your best. What has changed between now and then that you feel is letting you write your best stuff? 

I feel like I've always been really confident in my writing abilities and my taste in music, honestly, because that's like a huge factor into the art that you make is the influences that you pull from. But I'd say over the past year, my voice is no longer cracking on shit [laughing]

Wait, how old are you?

I'm 23. But some of the shit that I have–like the jazz hip-hop band I’m in: Juice Box–we just released an album. And some of those recordings are from 2019. And you can hear how high my voice is compared to now. I've gotten more confident on the mic. I can sing a little bit better. So I think a lot of the shit I'm making right now is just cleaner. I'm also really working on giving myself more space on the instrumentals because if you listen to the very first shit, like Rivan C, I just wrapped like a million miles per hour on every single song.

So, right now, are you on a label?

No, but you know what they say when you're up and starting. You fake it till you make it. I'm just new to the game. I don't have any team. I don't have a manager. I don't have an A&R rep, nothing. It's literally just me doing my shit.

Where do you feel like most of your listening came from, playing live shows or self-promo?

I've gotten more attention on my music in the past two months than I ever had before. So I think you just caught me like a little bit of a blow-up. 

You have almost like 10K listeners, right?

Oh, man. It went back down to 9K today. I'll probably make a little TikTok later today. 

I was going to ask about that next. Do you do the promo that's less traditional now, where you make content using the song and see if that will pick up speed that way?

Honestly, I have no idea how the content will blow up. I'm just trying to do stuff that looks cool and more professional, so it looks like I have a high production team when it's literally just me and a friend I've bullied into filming for me. Then I do all the editing behind it. On TikTok, I combine that with whatever my friends are doing, whatever I see recommended on my For You page, I just try and copy and paste the same.

You didn't pay off the kid in your last video?

I did not pay him off. That was actually hilarious because I was filming with my friend Robscure,  and his friend who's also a rapper, they were shooting a music video too… and the kid is also in their music video. 

Aw. So I guess he just goes around and helps independent artists. Does he have stuff we can pitch?

Oh, the kid? I think the kid is in middle school or something. The video he’s in did really well on Instagram- better than my other videos. That got no traction on TikTok. Maybe that kid could have reposted it on Instagram. He seemed a lot cooler than me. I definitely need his clout.

When you're making your songs, are you like a home recording person, or do you have a space that you go to? 

I do a number of things. I don't produce any of my own music. That's the only thing that I really outsource to other people- engineering and producing. I do know how to record my own vocals, so right now, I'm doing a combo of recording in my room, my very tiny room, or scratch. If I can't strong-arm my producer into coming to my place, I'll go to his place in Flatbush. Or my friends, Bee and Kenji, and Rose and Frankie; they own a studio called Supernova. 

There’s also my homie Cam Barnes. He's the one that produced this track, Lemonade. A God-sent man, really helping me out with everything that I need. And he's just an insane producer and rapper. Really, really talented rapper. But you can only, like, squeeze so much out of your friends for free before you feel really bad about it. All my friends are, like, they definitely support what I'm doing. But just like I don't want to be an annoying friend of my friends. You know what I mean? 

Yeah, I feel that. My friend Grant produced a song for free…but I’ve booked some of his shows, so it's kind of symbiotic.

Yeah.

So, upcoming shows. What would your ideal bill look like?

I actually have some really fun shows in the lineups right now. That's been my main thing I want to maybe strategize, just putting myself out there. Because, like I said, I don't have a team, so it's really dependent on me to put myself in rooms with people. The dudes that interviewed me, Never Come Home, I'm throwing a show with them on March 27th. And that will be after Lemonade comes out. 

Who would it be your dream to play with?

I'd say people who like Aminé would probably really like what I'm doing. I'd say that's probably who I'm most similar to. So maybe him and Kaytranada if they did a joint set.

Aminé reminds me of when life was good, and everyone was happy. 

I don't even know if everyone was happy then. I think the music was just really, really good.

It was really good.

Because when he blew up, I feel like the world was lowkey going to shit, but the music was fire. We didn't know how bad it was going to be.

Just the impending doom. Maybe everyone wanted to drop everything that's good and then not worry about it.

But listen, we're in 2024 now. Everything is good again. This is Year of the Dragon, so feeling the vibes for sure.

It is the Year of the Dragon!
Were you born in it?

No. I was Year of the Rabbit. Whatever. I’m here now.

You're like 43.

Yeah.

I think I'd love to play with The Internet too because I've never gotten to see The Internet. They're like the best R&B band of the past two decades. And I really want to see Nia Archives. She does really insane jungle techno stuff. I think that would be a good three.

That’s cool. But I don’t know what “jungle genre” means.

Oh, jungle is just like more high-energy drum and bass. It has a lot of reggae roots.

That's cool. Is that what we can expect in the 2024 album?

I think so.

Awesome. We’re about to learn.