Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Kahiem Rivera manages to weave a cynical, world-weary perspective into hip-hop songs about love, sex, race and disappointment. The Earth is in rough shape, and so is he.
Kahiem began recording solo music following a near-death bicycle accident in the Fall of 2016. What he describes as “It could have been worse” still meant 5 months of largely immobile recovery, and a lot of free time. It also meant a resurgence of some old, cyclical depression.
“This Night Last Year” was produced by jSinclair and features Snake Eyes. Rivera shares some insight in the track “it is about self medicating. I fell into a long depression last winter, during a leg injury from getting hit by a car. Once I was semi-healthy again, I started going out a lot to this one bar to get out of that rut. It was fun, and helped, but also started to feel very surreal. Just being there almost every night, till 4am, binge drinking with a lot of people who didn’t seem to have a care in the world. It almost felt like the club in San Junipero, from Black Mirror.” Kahiem continues “So the song is balancing the feeling of having genuine fun but also an existential “wtf am I doin”.”
Catch Kahiem on his last residency night at C’mon Everybody March 27th.