JAMILA YOUNG — Special to Southern News
Ryan Nurmi is an up-and-coming rap artist from Connecticut. He was born in Wethersfield, the outskirts of Hartford’s south end and now resides in Hartford.
He first started rapping at the age of 12, and now at 21 years old, he has a mixtape out called “Long Time Coming.”
Nurmi’s first performance was at the Webster Theater in Hartford and recently, he’s performed at Up or on the Rocks and Club Smash, both also in Hartford.
He says that music speaks to him, so he wants to have his music speak to people.
Nurmi has been on the radio four times; three times for an unsigned showdown and once for doing a drop for Kid Fresh of Hot 93.7.
As for right now, he does have some material under wraps in the works.
“I’ve always loved music,” Nurmi says.
Nurmi sees rapping as career, or else he says he wouldn’t bother doing it. His biggest musical influence is the late Notorious B.I.G.
He wants his music to reach anyone who feels what he’s saying in his lyrics, and he wants listeners to know that when they listen to his music, it’s real.
“I write from experience and what I’ve been through,” he says.
He says people who enjoy listening to Fabolous, Lloyd Banks, or Cassidy would appeal most to his music.
The “Long Time Coming” mixtape took a month to put together.
The process Nurmi uses to put his music together involves listening to the instrumental and then deciding what style of rapping would fit best with it.
“First I hear the beat.” “I could either be telling a story, or just start rapping aggressively,” he says.
His mixtape is titled “Long Time Coming” because it truly has been a long time coming for him to come out with this mixtape; so the title explains it all.
“Everything I’ve been through, from my arrest, incarceration and murdered friends all ties into waiting this long to put out a mixtape.”
Nurmi says that there’s a little bit of everything on his mixtape, from club bangers, to storytelling, to street bangers and even love songs.
As far as the genre of hip-hop goes, Nurmi feels as if it’s lost its realness — meaning that it got soft because no one is being honest and true anymore.
Anyone interested can listen to Ryan Nurmi’s mixtape “Long Time Coming” on datpiff.com.
His YouTube page also contains material.
Nurmi says he writes for at least an hour every day after he finds the beats he wants to use.
To people who want to pursue rapping, Nurmi says to “practice.”
“Don’t listen to what anyone says; follow your dreams. Stay true to yourself,” he says.
