Need another e-boy obsession? We gotchu. The E-Girl Review is the corner where we give you the rundown on everything catching in the alt-modern-Internet era. With a sharp focus on everything alternative pop culture, we’re catching the TikTok trends, new music icons, and more for you.
This time, we’re introducing you to your new favorite e-rapper:
Ryan Caraveo is about to grace us with a new album — Northend Sweetheart — and to say it’s highly anticipated would be an understatement. Ryan has become one of the top artists-on-the-rise with 7.7 million streams across platforms on the singles leading up to this Friday’s release.
What’s setting this musician apart? He’s climbing on social media, embracing a fan base of alt-loving music fans, and emulating a laid-back production style in his tunes. However, at the end of the day, that’s nothing new. In fact, that’s quite on-trend.
Immediately, what strikes me about Ryan’s music that’s spotlighting him amongst the others out there is his genre-blind approach and the way that every song individually seems to tell its own story from start to finish. He says: “I am not interested in executing a specific style of music well or how my songs are reviewed but I spend an absurd amount of time writing and think I make REALLY good music and I don’t think it sounds anything like other people’s music.”
I couldn’t agree more. Ryan’s latest release “Superstar”, which is nearing half a million streams on Spotify alone has a quick hook, snatching listeners into the immediate action of the song. Before long, you’re mesmerized by the honesty behind the lyrics and the ever-obvious sense that this song wasn’t just a throw-away beat, it was created with craftsmanship. So, when Ryan boasts the amount of time he’s spent writing – I believe him wholeheartedly. It shows in his work, almost overflowing with skilled music-making.
Ryan takes me through his writing process saying: “I don’t think you can plan for what will sound cool later so it’s best to just write as much as possible and use whatever inspires writing anything down. You can decide what to use it for later.”
It’s more than that, though. He explains that “Some days I’ll go through folders of guitar or bass or piano loops that have been sent to me and write to them. Other days I’ll write to beats on YouTube and pretend it’s for another artist. Some days I write thoughts and other days I’ll freestyle in my car and record it all in my voice memo.”
And he’s inspired by some absolute icons of the music industry, too. He credits some of his inspiration to artists like Kid Cudi, Linkin Park, and Tycho. He even notes that he is most inspired by lyrics in music.
You can easily understand this fusion of inspiration when you listen to Ryan’s tracks. His latest tunes have been developing toward the emerging cross-section between pop-punk and hip hop. He admits that this isn’t necessarily the intention, either: “Really we just play with sounds until something sounds exciting. I think some of these songs ended up sounding very alternative or a little more “pop-punk” but none of that stuff is planned, just kinda shaped up that way.”
“Superstar” is easily the track where this genre collision is not only so prominent but done the absolute best. With elements reminiscent of recent All Time Low, it’s the perfect track to blast on a late-night ride down your hometown’s jagged road. In fact, Ryan explained he chose the song to pull for a single particularly for that exact reason: “When the album was done it’s the first song I would play every time I got in the car”.
Beyond that, Ryan explains that the single has a bit of a deeper meaning. It’s about “Thinking back on my life and trying to determine if I’m worth it or deserving” in a way that is a back and forth with himself. “What stands out is that the music sounds like it has an ego with big 808’s but the lyrics are humble in a seemingly self-deprecating way and I love that juxtaposition.” He even teases the upcoming album releasing saying that “fans can definitely expect that sort of introspection on ‘Northend Sweetheart’.”
This album will be a culmination of Ryan’s ever-developing talent, years in the making. He’s been chasing this dream since he was about 13, snagging any opportunity he could to hop on stage with local rappers at bars before having to leave.
Since then, his biggest challenge in this industry has actually been himself, he says, citing his own stubbornness.
“On one hand it’s my life and the songs are babies and I SHOULD be precious about it. On the other hand people in the music industry do this work because of passion and if you’re rigid and untrusting of people you’re probably not fun to work with or difficult to be passionate about, even if your numbers are great. A label or management or any company worthwhile can only work on so many projects at once so don’t be difficult or too serious.”
Moving forward, though, we’re expecting a lot from Ryan. With goals of snagging some plaques for both his own projects and that he’s helped write and develop for others, we can see that he sets his sights high. He elaborates: “To be clear I want the plaques because the music was so damn good and worth it and not until then.”
Northend Sweetheart promises to be a good start at a new beginning for Ryan to jump off of. “In my old music, I think I was mentoring and motivating myself and you can hear that in the music mixed with my emotions. In newer songs, I can create with a clear head and be more potent because I’ve grown a lot and know how to say more with less words.”
With this project comes a jam-packed tour across America. I like to evaluate music with an element and lens of that live entertainment aspect and while I can’t say for sure, I think these tracks will translate to something really wonderful on stage. They seem to be written in a way that balances late-night car rides, but also packed crowds screaming back the songs in unity. Ryan makes real music that is for real people, so no doubt that will come alive when we once again see each other not on a screen, but instead in a music venue.
“I’m excited to have conversations with real people that I haven’t meant who are listening to my music right now.”
And to anyone who wants to be where Ryan is, he has this message:
“I know you have this feeling right now where you just know you’ve got something special and you’re not going to let anyone take it away or tell you how to do it. And that hard-headedness is important. In fact, it is likely what will determine whether or not you’re successful. BUT you’ve got to accept that the song you’re sitting on right now and holding so precious is probably not “the one.” and neither is the one after that. SO write 10 more. Then write 100 more. Nothing is more important than just writing constantly. Don’t be picky and don’t be perfect. Just keep writing and if you have 200 songs that you don’t want to put out, You have 200 songs worth of melodies and lyrics and ideas to pull from for when you DO have a song that is so close to the finish line but just needs that final piece. Just write as much as you can.”
This genre-bending, dedicated, and yet down-to-earth growing artist is eager to take the industry by storm and if given the chance, he may just do that. In fact, I know he will. You can’t have this type of talent and clear passion and not get somewhere. You can stream “Superstar” now everywhere be sure to pre-save Northend Sweetheart, get entered for some tix to the tour, and stream these new tunes when they drop Friday.
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