R.A.P Ferreira Has Nothing Left to Prove
Photography by Big Bill
Rory Ferreira a.k.a. R.A.P. Ferreira has gone by many names. You may know as Milo, or Scallops Hotel, or as part of Nostrum Grocers of the Ruby Yacht Poet Gang, which he founded in 2015.
Regardless of how he’s branded himself, Ferreira has made a career from songs that blur the line between hip-hop and spoken word. His music is uncompromisingly verbose and the production experimental. Those who like his music, adore him. Those who don’t, well they probably don’t get it.
A touring veteran, Ferreira took on a lot of risks to perform across the U.S. during the pandemic. Ultimately, he felt he couldn’t lose out on the source of income. It begs the questions of why the world is making him choose between staying in to protect his son from COVID or working to provide for him.
Staff writer Ben Moskow spoke to Ferreira back in June 2022, before his show at Chicago’s gorgeous Epiphany Center for the Arts, which featured local artists Open Mike Eagle and UDABABY as openers.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
I think it’s very cool doing what you're doing with Ruby Yacht, touring around with a crew of poets. It’s rare. How did you find the current members and how did you assess whether they’d fit in with your vision for Ruby Yacht?
The touring, you can do it. It isn't super glorious right now, so they don't want to do it, but anybody can do it. It's not very difficult.
Ruby Yacht started in 2015 as a label, because I needed a way to put out my own music… As I toured more and kicked in more, I met different artists. Almost immediately, Randall Bravery was a part, SB the Moor was a part. Kenny Segal was a part.
I wasn't looking for qualities. There's nothing like that. You're not like a dog groomer or a breeder. It’s just likeminded homies, people who I'm around anyway, who make this kind of art anyway. The idea of the poet gang, it isn't to create a hierarchy or even a vehicle to do anything per sé. It's just fellowship. Getting people who are similar to you together so you can have a soundboard for ideas, or people who can commiserate with you in a unique way.
I feel like fans of yours are more passionate about you and Ruby Yacht than the fans of the average artist. Like they’re willing to make it a larger part of their identity. Do you agree with that?
Oh, I think that everyone in 2022 is encouraged to make their purchases, their personality. I don't think that's unique to people who listen to this kind of music. I think that's how everybody's conditioned these days.
If anything, Ruby Yacht, and the kind of music we make encourages you to not do that. We kind of almost make it prohibitive. We make it cost prohibitive. Sometimes shit goes missing in the mail. Sometimes we're real human beings. You might catch us on a bad day and we're not gonna pretend to like you. And so, you're gonna leave and be like, “oh, they were mean,” even though you, too, have mean days,
People expect artists to also be customer service representatives. You’re supposed to be trained like the homie when I call Best Buy and I want customer service. Ruby Yacht, we don't do that. The artists are gonna talk to you how an artist should, which is how they feel. And that should probably terrify you, really [laughs].
But let's be real, most people don't want that. The consumer base has been conditioned at this point after decades of purchasing from these “customer representative artists.” But for the few who want something that's freaky, we got you [laughs].
With this constant flow of energy and movement in your life, how do you keep yourself grounded?
I write in a book. I don’t try to make sense. I think I usually get more confused if I try to make sense, and I want to make room for another entity for consciousness to come through. The words I scribble helps me connect the dots with how I’ve grown, what I want to do, and go deeper into myself. Writing is a constant source of grounding.
How does today feel for you? You’re back in Chicago, you have roots here of course.
Oh, this is a great day. This is a glorious day, no complaints. Came in, drove from Kalamazoo. Had a good show last night. Everything going well, everybody fed and happy, chilling. Great day. 10 out of 10.
I feel like you, you hit the road very frequently. How's this tour been different from ones in the past?
I do. COVID has changed a lot and I don't even want to get into what's done to touring because that's it’s own essay. But more than anything, it’s a good old rust belt tour. That's what we on right now, coming to the rust belt, started in Pittsburgh and just kept it funky. Those are pretty neglected places in America, in terms of like, touring acts don't typically go through those places.
Just going through and trying to service people. Amiri Baraka called this art form “black cultural work.” Black cultural workers. And that's how I feel when I'm on tour. Like I'm servicing these places that maybe haven't ever seen people like us, never got to interact with people like us. Maybe they didn't even know people like us existed.
You can't really be angry at people who've been groomed by propaganda to hate something they've never even been around. Giving people that opportunity to update their operating systems and interact with something new and maybe learn about themselves and the world around them, it's always exciting.
Do you think people come in with some preconceived notions about what y'all do you know that are on the negative side? Or is that what you're saying?
I'm a humble artist, so I play a lot of little shitty bars. A lot of people at my shows don't even know they're at my shows. They don't know what the fuck they're hearing. You know? Like the people who come, they already know what it is. Right. But a lot of times people in my shows, they're just like, “oh, there's some rapper here tonight. I don't know. There's never anyone here. We just came,” and then they leave being like, “I never saw no shit like that.”
You've had a long career at this point spanning over a decade.
Aye, that's hard! I mean, I’m 30.
It is! You recently turned 30?
Yeah. I recently turned 30, but just hearing you say I've had a long career, that's over a decade and I'm 30.
You said your uncle, who goes by NIZM, was one of the first to inspire you. I was listening to this interview you did where you explained that you both were into music. He picked a more practical path forward and you dropped out of school and did the opposite, and went full speed on the art.
Hey, it's easy to go through a door when it's been broken down. [laughs] For real, and my man is who broke it down. He already put this idea into the collective unconscious of my family. It wasn’t crazy, I was like, “unc can do it!” So that was my leverage a lot of times.
It got to the point with music where it was kind of undeniable. Shit was cracking for me in college. And I conferred with [NIZM] and we both looked at our notes and said “shit, it might be time to make that move.” And actually another MC, Gilead 7 (check spelling), who has also been like an uncle to me my whole life, I consulted with him as well. My uncle has a doctorate. Gilead 7 has a doctorate. These are two great MCs, but also academics. And I made a point to ask them if they thought I was at a place that it was cool to do that.
Going back to having been a career artist. You still don't seem to carry an ego with you when it comes to where to perform.
Oh, I mean, I carry my ego in many other ways [laughs], but I'm just happy to play anywhere. I mean, any artist would be really, secretly. I saw a video of Erykah Badu busking. If you're a performer, you enjoy performing. There are times you just want to turn it on. You're just happy to do that.
You think you resonate with the performing aspect of music more than the recording aspect? Or is it equal?
I don't know if I can measure it, but no, I don't feel one is more than other. They're both necessary but way different.
Who inspires you?
My son. He’s the shit.
How old is he?
He's five and he's extremely confident in everything he does. And I just marvel at that. I learned a lot from that.
I feel like my confidence has almost waned with age for me. I don't know why that is.
Wow. Right. Exactly.
The pandemic definitely interrupted things. But…
at this point, it's like, I'd never want to use that crutch.
Because everyone and everything had to go through it. Right.
And we're still going through it! And just knowing it is like, “okay, I know it's there, so I'm gonna abandon it.” I can't let that be the reason my shit isn’t how I want to be. Although my shit isn't how I want to be for that reason.
Interesting. When did you feel like you were “back outside?”
I don’t feel like I’m back outside. I'm here touring because that's how I pay my bills. But otherwise, I live super isolated. I mean, I have a little boy, so I don't play around with that shit. It's spooky, man. And after this run, I'll go back to doing that. Being at my house, working from home, I can do a lot of mail order shit and drop albums from the crib and stuff.
So streaming payouts are, of course, awful. Do you put a lot of weight on Bandcamp purchases? Like having people support you more directly?
No, I don't put any weight on Bandcamp purchases. It’s like you said, I've had a long career, so I can remember when we first got the emails that said “there's this new service called Spotify. It's gonna empower the artist!” [Laughs] At that point, I stopped riding for any of these corporations. They're useful when they're useful, but they take advantage of us. Eventually they get big money and move on. That's the cycle. So Bandcamp's useful for now, but I don't put emphasis on it and I don't take part in advertising for them or anything like that.
How did you arrive at your current view of the world?
I guess after years of working with my friends and trying to make honest deals that benefit us and pay us all well, and learning how rare that is, and learning that being meek and humble isn't gonna get us fed. We gotta stand on our principles, we have to have good reasons backing up why we do what we do, but yeah, we stand on it.
I don't know when that happened though. Maybe when my son was born. You really [need to figure out] how you're gonna handle stuff. When he was on the way, I had to make up my mind of like, will I even continue to try to be an artist? Or is it time to hang this shit up and get a job?
Just committing and going fully into [rapping], not backing down and taking on that responsibility is fun. It's a great honor. And the gravity that comes with it is very powerful. And I enjoy that.
Where are y'all staying now? Like where is he?
RF: Tennessee. We live in Nashville.
Gotcha. You've lived in a lot of different places in your life, you mentioned that.
I have to mention that. I got all these weird connections and shit.
I can see how that would help when it comes to getting venues together for shows.
In the early days, for sure. I don't do that so much. Now my boy Niklas Oliver with Oliver Booking does all of my shit. If you ever see me play a show it's because my boy Nik handled that for me.
Doesn’t he work with Armand Hammer too?
He used to, but they moved to, I believe, the Agency Group now.
They just got onto some crazy festivals lately. Playing Pitchfork, Day in Vegas.
Right. N****s is playing the game.
Do you feel like you've ever played the game?
Fuck no. Never. And I'm not knocking anybody for playing the game. A lot of my friends play the game and they win and they do great, but that's just not what I'm doing. I'm doing something else.
It's just a power inequality. How would you approach a corporation as a person? How many lawyers do you have that work for you? To even function or work with them, you have to have a team, you know? And how do you feed your team off of your art? These are the questions that cats who play the game have to answer. It's hard. It's not easy to do. And that's really why I'm not playing it. That shit seems hard.
You’re gambling, individual decisions, really betting on your art in a big, big way. You have to trust that the machine isn't gonna eat your ass up, which it randomly chooses to.
You've seen that happen.
I mean, we've all seen that happen. Sometimes I wonder how many rappers have died since I've been a rapper.
Fuck.
Right. It's a crazy line of work that definitely chews people up in lots of different ways.
Do you remember the first time someone told you that you had a way with words? I feel like that's something you've probably heard a lot.
What comes to mind is my stepmom and my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Purcell. Both of them really liked my raps when I was young [laughs] and would be like, “hey, you got a new rap?”
My family is all very, uh, loquacious. Well spoken, well written people who put a lot of power into the word. So, it was kind of just expected of me, I think, to be able to express myself well.
Do you feel satisfied with what you've done with it? Or are you just kind of like, “well, these were the conditions that were set out, this is where I was going to end up”?
I feel great, bro. I honored my clan, and the patriarch let me know that. The skill set that my family has attached themselves to, I feel like I took that and I've been putting numbers on the board with it.
The patriarch of your family co-signed your work?
Yeah, my grandfather. But my dad has too. Shit, all the men in my family, everyone in my family does, but yeah, I just said the patriarch because he was the head.
It's extremely important to me to be in alignment with my family.
What do you think you would be doing if you weren't rapping?
I don't know, maybe become a farmer, growing different stuff, probably weed. Like that could probably make some good money doing that.
Originally, I was in school to be a lawyer and I even entertained going back, but it was just like fuck, this's a lot of work and I would need money now and not to like sink myself deeper into a hole.
So yeah, I wasn't really thinking about going back to school, but I was thinking about moving my fam, growing weed and just learning horticultural shit. Hydroponics and lecithin.
Have you grown it before?
No, no. I've been rapping my whole life.
Well, yeah. Could be a little side project. You never know.
Fuck no. No, no, no, no. The way I do rap, I don't have any side projects. I just focus on this.
What's on your plate after the tour?
I don't know. I'm working on a few different projects and refining my guitar abilities. I study all the time on guitar, blues in particular. That's all I play. It's the blues.
Who are some like foundational blues musicians for you?
Samuel James is the most foundational. That's my teacher, the illest living blues man to me. He’s so filthy, and that I could approach him and get tutelage from him, it's been everything.
Mississippi Fred McDowell, Skippy James, Memphis Minnie, Sun House, Robert Belfor, HalloWolf. That’s kind of my au revoir. I like those cats a lot.
Georgia Anne Muldrow is my favorite artist of all time of any medium. I wish I could claim more influence by her, but what she does I feel like I'm incapable of even approaching.
What specifically with her resonates with you?
All of it. Georgia does all of it. Sings, makes beats, raps, plays instruments, all of it, and to such a high level. And I mean, talk about divinely inspired music that heals and uplifts, but isn't corny or reductive. Georgia’s the best.
You tweeted something about how you resisted learning an instrument early on in your rap career. But now you just said learning guitar made you a better MC. What about learning guitar made you a better MC?
I had to learn music. I've been rapping for 10 years with no concept of music for real, other than the innate one. And so to get my innate one that strong and sharp and then add onto it has been tremendous. It's reformed my understanding of my original instrument, which is my voice.
When you play guitar, even just that rudimentary [process of] going through all of those notes all the time, I've just gotten way more comfortable with my voice by playing guitar.
That has been extremely apparent. I just made a rap record last month and I just felt like I could express stuff in a new way. I could use my voice, like a boomerang.
Anything else you want to add?
Ruby Yacht forever. Soul Folks over everything, Solid Gumbo Works, Pilot Enterprises, Bookoo Bread Company. Shout out to all the great poets throughout time, from yesterday to tomorrow. We got work to do.