Ramaj Eroc | Individual Prosperity Lead to NoName, Dave East

Ramaj Eroc is a stud. The rapper out of Chicago has achieved success on his own with singles like ‘N*ggas and B*tches’ and ‘Hooptie’ reaching 4.5 millions of streams and 2.4 million streams on SoundCloud.

I been ridin’ thru the city in a hooptie
I been ballin’ since a youngin’, like a nigga wanted college to recruit me

Besides those individual successes raking up millions of plays on his own, he has even linked up with some popular names from the hip-hop nucleus in Chicago such as NoName. The two Chicago artists play off each other in the chorus of this track ever so beautifully, bouncing off one another gently to form a smooth lullaby love song.

I say I love you more, she say not like she do

He is adept at switching styles and keeping flows interesting, and always hits the pocket at that. Aside from his dope versatility on the mic, he is also a very talented producer. This is hard to come by in hip-hop. He is a true one-man-army in that regard. Talented self-sufficiency is another reason to check out Ramaj Eroc, and when listening keep in mind the hours that go into writing lyrics, perfecting flows, punching in ad-libs and recording doubles. After you contemplate that, think about the work that goes into learning digital audio workstations and mastering that, then possessing enough musical knowledge to understand chord progression, creating melodies, drum patterns and playing multiple instruments. After that attempt of comprehension, you can listen to Ramaj Eroc’s music with that in mind and understand the true talent that he possesses.

Ramaj is also opening up for Dave East’s ‘Get It How I Live Tour‘ on January 4th at the Echoplex in Los Angeles, California. If you’re on the west coast, this isn’t a show you want to miss.

We got the chance to exclusively interview Ramaj Eroc, here at Rap Fiesta.

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Lets kick it off with the basics. Where are you from and how old are you?

I’m 27. I’m from Chicago, Illinois.

What made you want to get into music rather than doing normal activities that other people do?

I was actually a basketball player, my dream was to go to the NBA. I actually didn’t get into music until I was like 10. I’d rather watch Dragon Ball Z or anime, or anything else really. But my brother, who actually raps with me now, used to freestyle as a kid with my cousin and they would always try to get me to do it. Eventually I started doing it, it seemed fun at 10 or 11 years old. It wasn’t like I wanted to be a rapper, it was just straight fun.

You mention in that song as well that you had hoop dreams and could have played college ball. I’m an avid hooper myself and I love that story. How close was that dream to becoming a reality?

It wasn’t close. I’m not even going to sit here and front. I was good. In Chicago, I was raised in the really bad part of the city so of course we thought it would take us out the struggle. Freshman year, I didn’t make the team and when I came home and told my brother, he stood up and threw his phones and said, “You lying.” and I was like, “I’m deadass.” Everybody was shocked and I rgot super bad grades that year because I felt like, “Damn, if I ain’t make the team my chances of going to the league are kinda low.” I was depressed, I ain’t even going to front.

So you mention you grew up in the bad part of Chicago. What type of situations did you experience?

I got ran up on a few times on. I try to avoid conflict at all costs. I didn’t do the gang banging, the smoking weed, the drinking. I didn’t do none of that, but yeah it was rough. People ran up on me a few times thinking I was somebody else. They would be chasing after me, but I would never run. I stood there. Every time they got like 3 feet away, they would be like “Oh, you not the dude”. I had other times people checking my pockets. One time I went to the store with my cousin and I had like 6 dudes checking my pockets. Luckily, I left my wallet in the car and I knew someone who was with those 6 dudes. We recognized each other and come to think about it, when we were kids we used to play with each other in the backyard when we were like 4.

You have 2 songs with over millions of views on Soundcloud, one of those being ‘Hooptie’. Did you promote that heavily or did it happen to just blow up on its own?

Well, I don’t have a label. I don’t have financial backing. I never had managers. I never had PR and still don’t. When I dropped it, I knew it was going to be heat because I performed it a couple times before I dropped it and had different strategies of promoting it. Not even with money, but just on social media a lot. When that song dropped, it did the numbers I thought it was going to do. It hit 300k in the first 3 months. Ever since then its been on the move.

Was that the first track you had to do crazy numbers like that?

Actually it was the other song, “N*ggas and B*tches”. The song was random, I heard a Drake song and thought I should make a song similar to this. I found a beat off YouTube and recorded it, all in the same day which took like 8 hours. Then, I dropped it the same day. That was the first song that did numbers. On SoundCloud, people know about it.

Man that song ‘I Love You More’ with No Name is incredible. What was it like doing a song with NoName and how did you link up with her?

Honestly, it was right when Chance The Rapper dropped ‘Acid Rap ’ and she was on it. It was a business thing. I held the song for a year as she was promoting her project ‘Syllable’. It wasn’t like we got in the studio and worked with each other. I just hit her up and asked if she was available for features. When she said yea, we made the transaction. I sent her the beat, she sent me a verse. Shit, lowkey that’s really it.

Do you do this music full-time?

Full time. I don’t do nothing else. I’m sitting in front of the computer now. Right now, I’m relying on streaming because I do a really decent amount on SoundCloud, I do a decent amount on Spotify. I’ve tried to understand the ropes of how to get my Apple Music buzzin. Right now, me and my crew are trying to get a tour together about this time next year. We want to hit cities we’ve been too before. I’ve been to New York, I’ve been in Philly. We’re easing our way into the merch as well. We’re trying to figure it out. At the moment, it’s really strictly streams at this point.

Since you’re not signed to a label or have a manger. How do you set up tours and shows for yourself in different states?

I just do a lot of reading. A lot of reading. Google.com has been my best friend since I was 17 years old. I watch a lot of videos. One of the major things they say is to go to these cities first before you start to do any tours with booking agents. Then, you can come through to do a show and have a good draw of people. That way they already know who you are, and you won’t have to worry about bringing people out.

I also heard that Soundcloud streaming money isn’t as good as Apple Music or Spotify. I heard the payouts bad. Is that true?

It’s not even close. Soundcloud payouts are at the bottom. From calculations that I’ve seen, different distributors will pay differently. Spotify on Distrokid pays out differently than what Tunecore would pay you for the same streams. Apple Music pays 7x more than SoundCloud, if its not 7x its 6x.

I think one of the very attractive facets of your artistry is that you produce as well as rap. How did your start for producing begin?

That’s crazy because I been making my own beats for a while. I never thought they were good, I’ve been making beats since I was 14 or 15. Recently, I been watching a lot of Russ interviews and how he does everything himself. I got into a situation myself where I had leased a beat from a producer, and I was about to get a deal for my single with a distributor. Then they asked me if I owned the beat and I told them it was a lease, then they said they wouldn’t do deals with leased beats. That really struck a bell with me, because I hate not being able to do something because of somebody else. I thought from now on, I’m just going to do it myself.

Do you use beats from other artists now?

I try to keep everything in house. I released 13 singles this year, and 11 of them were ones that I produced. One was a beat I leased from LAKEY INSPIRED, I knew what I was getting into when I leased it. The other one was ‘Mf Uhhh’ and that was produced by the same guy who produced ‘Hooptie’, D-errick.

That’s amazing that you mainly do everything in house, and not at these expensive studio’s. Do you mix and master your own shit too?

Yep, everything I do is done myself.

Although, you have not achieved superstardom yet, you are definitely not far away. Do you have any crazy stories about  fans or groupies with the fame that you do have?

I do. There was this girl who heard my song on the internet. She lives in San Diego, and I was in LA. I invited her to the show and she drove up. After the show, we had a little after party and she came and was just staring at me the whole time. Which was cool, she’s a fan of the music first before anything else. Then, one day she drove up from San Diego to Los Angeles again, and she was like “You wanna hang out?”. Lowkey, it’s not really crazy. She had something on her shirt and was like, “Ooh I need help getting it off.”, it was so weird and then I had to get it off and she was like, “Oh, thanks you helped a lot.”, and I was touching on her breasts and shit. It was like, “Wow, is that what being an artist is?”. It was dope, but that was one of the first moments something like that ever happened to me.