Diamond apocalypse: an encounter with RiFF RaFF

by Jack Kredell

Christian Simco, better known as Riff Raff, has dedicated his adult life to the singular purpose of achieving widespread fame. In 2009, he made the second season cast of MTV’s From G’s to Gents before being voted off on the second episode. Eager to capitalize on the moment, he had the MTV logo tattooed on his neck and briefly changed his name to MTV RiFF RaFF. During this period he also auditioned for a peanut butter commercial meant for a teenager (that tape, if it exists, is bound for YouTube glory).

A lot has changed since then, as I witnessed backstage at Irving Plaza for Riff Raff’s CMJ show, when he showed me his layer cake of a pink diamond wristwatch and declared: “I done froze time.” Science doesn’t know if lots of diamonds can actually slow time down, but for Riff Raff time has stopped; fame has arrived and more of it is on the way. Riff Raff’s next solo effort, NEON iCON, is coming out on Blackberry commercial personality Diplo’s Mad Decent label in January and will feature collaborations with Drake, A$AP Rocky, Snoop Dogg, Wiz Khalifa, Future, and Mac Miller. His collaboration with Action Bronson, Galaxy Gladiators, is also scheduled for release early next year.

When Riff Raff arrived, the first thing he did was drink half a bottle of CÎROC vodka. Backstage, Riff Raff was like some gaudy celestial body whose gravity held everybody and everything, including at least ten blunts, in a tight, perpetual orbit. I became one of these many satellites, Riff Raff’s miserable prying space junk, hoping to get some new album details or ask where he got his tracksuit. But Riff Raff had entered a heightened state of awareness, where your effort to snag his attention became nothing but a buzzkill (not to mention impossible). Riff Raff was now in performance mode. When Riff Raff gets high he begins to freestyle, twisting anything he hears or sees into his trademark absurdist couplets. If he hit on something clever and deranged enough he would motion to a posse member and they would record it. Riff Raff has stated before that he doesn’t write and this must be how some of his verses are composed.

If you’re going to meet Riff Raff you need to bring offerings; blunts, limited-run Adidas Mutombos, girls, the promise of more fame – all of these are good offerings. Since I could offer none of these, my experience was kept superficial. My busty female companion, however, had a much richer experience when she asked for a picture and Riff Raff, gazing at her cleavage as if addressing it alone, poked it gently and said, “Ooh, you’re cute”. The next day my companion posted several of these on Instagram, including one of Riff Raff talking to Lil Debbie with the caption: “Riff Raff talking smack to Lil Debbie”.  Lil Debbie called my companion a “lurking bitch” on Instagram. They have beef now.

The hip-hop community has been slow to embrace Riff Raff. Ebro, on Hot97 once famously ridiculed him for looking like a grotesque parody of the hip-hop lifestyle. Some wonder if Riff Raff is a character or mask put on by a white boy from the Houston suburbs. I don’t have an opinion on this other than to say with Riff Raff the mask is real; there is nothing on the other side. The truth is that Riff Raff is a surprisingly good rapper who brings fun and humor to popular music without being ironic. On top of that, Riff Raff is not going away anytime soon. He’s not a one-hit wonder, in fact, Riff Raff’s massive and growing following is not the result of traditional media or chart success. His use of social media has been ingenious in that he has found a way to turn going viral – usually something unpredictable – into a quantifiable hustle. Last year alone he made over 90 music videos, many of which have over a million views. That seems pretty real to me