From Page 16 to Writing 16’s; The SF State Birth of Rocky Rivera

Rocky Rivera is a woman that along her career has held many amazing hats and alias’. “Miss Krish is the journalist. EyeASage is a member of the Rhapsodistas which has since disbanded.. Rocky Rivera is the woman sitting right here today. Oh and Dr. Rocky? She only comes out when you need her.. The mad scientist” Rocky Rivera explains.

Currently Rocky Rivera is a successful, underground, independent rapper with a great following of what she likes to call her “Rocky Soldiers”. When Rocky Rivera visited Special Sundays Radio Show with Miss Special on KSFS, it was like a walk down memory lane. Most of her path to success started there at San Francisco State University.

“I always knew that I wanted to do something in hip-hop, and I found that when I was at SF State. This is coming back to where I started as a journalist..” Her extensive journalism career took her as far as MTV and Rolling Stone when she was a part of, and won MTV’s hit show, “I Wanna Work For Rolling Stone”.

“When the Rolling Stone thing came around, I was already a journalist. I was already doing Ruckus Magazine and interviews with The San Francisco Bay Guardian. That just shows you that if you’re on the ball and you really want to do something, the universe conspires with you.”

Many of her articles were geared around the bay area hip-hop artists that she was raised on, so it came as no surprise when she became a bay area hip-hop artist as well. “I knew that there was more, there was more to my contribution. In the end I had to become a participant because I still felt like those answers that I wanted to know weren’t being answered and I had to be that answer.”

Her group The Rhapsodistas began at the same place as Special Sundays Radio Show; SF State and were constant performers on campus. The group spawned after the women met as advisors at League Of Filipino Students, and taking Asian- American Studies Courses. Rocky had decided that she wanted to rap and told the other ladies who traditionally did spoken word that they should all rap together. “It was really amazing the response to get that people would see not just one Pinay emcee, that’s mad militant and really on point, but there was four of us. So we were in complete solidarity and people really loved it. To this day they want to see us back together, but it was really a moment in time.”

In addition Rocky Rivera took hone of her main name at SF State as well. She came across the name Rocky Rivera while having to read a book in an Asian-American Literature class. This book was “The Gangster Of Love” which is also the title of her upcoming album that she is currently working on. “I want this to be my most musical album ever so I’m taking my time with it. Not in a sense where it’s going to take my five years to put out.” Rocky hopes to raise the bar for herself with this project, as well as, give the people something new. “I really want to dig in to the talent of the bay and give the people something they have never seen before. A softer side of Rocky, if there is one.” Perfectionism being a constant characteristic in hip-hop music, especially of classic albums, it makes fans even more excited for the project and willing to wait for it. Especially when they have so much great Rocky Rivera music already to listen to such as “Married To The Hustle”, “Rocky Rivera”, and her latest free mixture “Pop Killer” available now at BeatRockMusic.com.

“At the end of the day it all comes to one thing, what are you about, what is your music about. I just want to make sure there’s a little girl out there that listens to my music and hears my music and says ‘no I don’t have to be somebody else’s fantasy to do what I do. I just have to be me.’ That’s really what my music is about. It’s me finally taking control of my message and wrestling it away from whatever publication, whatever institution, whatever authority and finally making it my own. That’s what Rocky Rivera stands for to me.”

I just uploaded “Special Sundays with Rocky Rivera” to www.mixcloud.com - listen now!

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jansportj:

Cov Original Music Producer Jansport J checks in with Miss Special to discuss his latest instrumental release MoveMeants II: The Reprise. In the interview, the two speak on how to construct an instrumental album, the film accompanying the album, the story behind the infamous beard, sampling porn clips and the marketing campaign involving the album cover.