5 On it: RedRanger Ronnie

When I first saw RedRanger Ronnie he had this mystic to him. Dressed in cowboy attire and a red bandanna covering his face, it was hard to see just who he truly was. I sat down with him to find out just who is RedRanger Ronnie. Checkout our interview below.
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You wear many hats but what I want to talk about today is the RedRanger Ronnie. Tell me about it. So RedRanger Ronnie is a character I created about two years ago. It really came off of an idea I had about how many places could I publicly take a pony, and take into that place, so the reason why RedRanger Ronnie came about was really I had written a song, and in the song I had taken my two favorite childhood things which were Power Rangers and cowboys, to put them together so I started off the project two years ago with taking a pony named Cowboy into as many local businesses I could get him into or as many like art festivals or museums I could take him into. Any building that would let me take a full-grown horse into, I was really excited to, so that's how RedRanger Ronnie gave birth. It was really just for the idea of how many places I can fit a pony. into.

The black cowboy has kind of like been commercialized now you see Pharrell with Louis Vuitton and how he had the models and black cowboys also how you see just a recent commercial with Snoop Dogg doing the Jin and Juice and had the black cowboy. Can you tell us how do you feel about you know commercialization of the black cowboy? I really appreciate how it is bringing black Western culture to
the Forefront, I'm just not a fan of the commercialization of it, only because to a degree I feel as if real cowboys get pushed out and the people who are wanting to be trendy are put in it, so for example your real cowboys like the one they took to France and stuff for the show [Louis Vuitton Parris Fashion Show] that's amazing to see, it's good to see that. What I don't like are people who aren't apart of rodeo culture, then taking it and kind of not representing it the way it in the way it came up, or also the same way the same way like this hypocritical thing. As a kid I grew up wearing cowboy boots SIG shirts regular jeans, the whole nine yards, big belt buckle, and mostly the black kids would be like, 'oh he's a white boy, he a white boy' and I'm like, 'I live on 59 [59th street north] and you live on like 81st and Memorial near Broken Arrow, the math isn't mathing,' so I really enjoy when it is bringing to the front, What I don't like is when it's just trendy and I hate when the trend goes out and I'm still wearing cowboy stuff someone's going to look at me and be like, 'oh that was all last year', so I hate love, I hate love, but it's nice, it's cool to see.

What do you say to people say this is a gimmick? I would say they probably just don't know me, you know the biggest thing about the world is being yourself, there's seven billion people in the world and each individual human being on this planet even if they're identical twins or whatever, all have their own unique story one way or another, one person's day isn't the same as another person's day, and the whole nine yards. So, if someone was to stay to answer you, I would say. 'it is what it is'. I think it was Pimp C who once said, "If you started your first album off as a cartoon character, your last alum has to be a cartoon character, I don't see RedRanger Ronnie as a cartoon character, I see him as an extension of myself, he is a part of me. He's a part of my lore, so I don't see RedRanger Ronnie as a gimmick or anything like that, it's more of just it's fun to be able to express yourself and be able to do it whenever and however you want.

Your first single out the gate "Beef", talk about "Beef" and how it came about. Beef was the last song to actually be made for the mixtape. I think it is the only song that was recorded in 2024, where a lot of the other songs were actually recorded in either 2022 or 2021. So a lot of the songs were a little bit older and they just got played now. But yeah "Beef" was the most recent song. and the way "Beef" really came about was I just really like the commercials ["Beef, it's what's for dinner" ad campaign], you know ,the du du Beef, and I just thought it was super cool. A homie of mine sent me a beat and the name of the beat was called Triple Beam Beat, shout out Synth Poppi in Atlanta Georgia, it's called Triple Beam Beat or something like that, and the first thing I thought about was the triple i beam TN,, so that's how come the opening bar is, "Put eyes on his head like TN, and then after that I was like I gotta have something that's a little bit more vicious, so it led to beef, you know everyone in the world has somebody who they might not like or might not get along with, so you just have beef, beef doesn't always have to be toxic, you can have beef with people and it be healthy you know, it's like Kendrick said, 'this could be a friendly Fade if you keep it that way' so that's how I like to look at beef, it's just a friendly way to say like hey man I'm down for that.

 
Can we talk just talk about a little bit of your musical influences and then what inspires you. So my first
influence I would probably say is Kanye, modern day Kanye I can't do as much as I used to, but when I was a kid Kanye West told us be expressive of who you are, he rocked pink polos, he had Louis Vuitton backpacks, it was not something you saw rappers wear, especially in that day and time. You had Kanye West versus 50 Cent and 50 Cent at that time was like the best rapper. like he was at peak and for Kanye West to outsell him on that first week [album sales] for Graduation really changed a lot of how I saw blackness, how I saw art, and it was like wow! If Kanye West's tittle nerd self can beat out the
thugs in the rap category who says I can't make music. So ever since then Kanye West, Pharrell, Andre3000, Frank Ocean, Ty the Creator, these artists who are black as hell but just don't always get seen in that same kind of light because they don't have that mainstream thug to them.

How do you feel your influence on life growing up in Turley, North Tulsa, how has that been incorporated into your music? A lot, Turley and the Nitty they got a lot of people who ride horses, it's a it's kind of country almost, when you grow up around horses you grow up around "ye haw" culture, rodeo culture, that influences a lot of things of how you see the world, how you treat people, Cowboys, one thing about a cowboy they're willing to help each other, 'hey man you need a ride here? I got you. Hey man we need some [help] we just got a horse that just got out'. You know I've had plenty of neighbors who've had like four or five horses get out and they're just at my house and I'm like, 'hey man these yours? Yeah okay, just come get em when you can. Okay no problem.' So it's never an issue like that and I think that translates into my music, where you hear some of the western tones in it, like RedRanger Ronnie uses a lot of western bars, even in "Beef" you know, 'been working cattle since I was a youngin, and that's be rockin Wranglers,' so a lot of my influences definitely come from my childhood and that's where my music likes to pull from or just the experiences I've had growing up on a horse ranch, listening to country music, just all those different influences can just be heard throughout the music if you listen for the bars.

How do you describe your music to someone who's never heard it? I would say it is it's funny, I don't want to make comedic rap like a little Dicky or anything like that, but I enjoy being funny with bars, sometimes I think we underestimate how funny rap bars really are, and we always want to make rap serious, we have to talk about the police killing us. or us killing each other, or how we got to make money and fuck bitches and the whole nine, where in reality some of the bars you listen to in rap songs could be some of the funniest. Even with the Kendrick bar right, 'trying to strike a chord and it's probably a minor', like that's a joke more than it is a serious thought-provoking bar. Same thing even when Kanye West said, 'You got any black inside you? Would you like some?' Things like that, or Lupe Fiasco's verse on that same song "Everyone Nose Remix" he uses "Hi" for each bar, eating on Hydrox, 'she's up at high school,' to talk about a girl's drug addiction, so it's just the way we can incorporate humor into our bars is what I would like to tell people, like listen to it without having any like preconceived notion of what a rap song should sound like.

What song would you suggest for somebody who has never heard your music? I probably say "Heartbreak Rodeo", I think that's my most personal song, it's a song that just kind of talks about how I feel about life at times, it's a very sad song but it's just a really cool song, I sing in it, and I'm not the best singer, but that also just shows like I'm not afraid of taking the chances on doing whatever I want to do just for like me to have fun with it, so I think "Heartbreak Rodeo" on this tape is for sure the most intrinsic song I have.

What got you into rapping? I started rapping like not seriously, but you know as a kid you freestyle, my mom worked for COX so we got all the fancy music channels including MTV Jams on channel 160 and then MTV Hits was on 161 and then I think it was like MTV3 or MTV 2 was on 159, so my entire childhood was like Cartoon Network, MTV Jams, Disney channel, MTV Jams, so I watch rap music videos religiously and they would loop like every hour, so I can watch the same one I can't tell you how many Hype Williams videos I've seen, so when I would watch rappers all the time and I'm like man that just seems like fun you know, so watching those rappers do that and then when I started seeing more local artists rapping, I was like oh they can do it, I can do it. My friend Young Stickers, Benzo, Streffey, and then I got into Dom [St. Domonick] when I got older, the Keeng Cut tape The Flavor Tape [Snackin' With Flavor] is one of my favorite tapes of all time. So it's like when you can see the big stage and then you can see it be done on the smaller stage there's no excuse for you not to try it. So my rap inspiration all really just comes from watching my friends and my Idols just do what they want to do.

What message or impact do you hope to have or leave on the industry. and for the artistry. for music in general? As cliche as it is man, just be yourself bro, like you know you don't have to wear the same outfits as other rappers to say you making it as a rapper, you aint got to do the same sounds to make it as a rapper, you know the one thing that always amazes me whenever people hear my music they'll say, 'oh it's refreshing. We haven't heard something like this before'. I'm like is that true? Like I thought it sounded like this, but then you kind of compare it you're like oh it doesn't, but then there's a lot of times you can listen to a song and be like this sounds like so and so, so just be yourself and if it's wonky let it be wonky. people will naturally come to what they think is like genuine, like genuine versus what they think is generic, I think a lot of people don't recognize the first time you heard your Drake song it didn't sound like other rapper songs because he was singing, or the first time you heard a Kanye West beat, people were putting Amari Bonami  in there beats with violins, so you have to realize you have to be able to take those risks and things to be able to break out, so that would be my advice to anyone who wants to like get into music or get into art or anything in life is be yourself and use yourself as the impact. Like, I hope the same way my favorite rappers in Tulsa impacted me, I hope that there's a kid who hears my mixtape and then like in 2030 some kid comes up to me like, 'what's up OG, you know first time I heard "Boys Don't Cry" man I was like wow!' So that's my goal, if I can hear that in like the next 10 years someone says hey my tape did this for you, I did my job.

Thanks again to RedRanger Ronnie for taking time out his day to do the amazing interview. Go stream his new tape "Boys Don't Cry But, Wofs Shed Tears."

Follow RedRangerRonnie on social media:

Instagram: @redrangerronnie
YouTube: ThunderWof.
Spotify: ThunderWof.

Watch the rest of the interview here: