20-year-old British producer Ryder has released a double A-sided single ‘WTF‘ featuring acclaimed Luton based rapper BXKS and ‘I Been‘ featuring Daniella Wizard, lifted from the upcoming debut EP due later this year.
Co produced by Leon Jean-Marie, Ryder deftly melds various genres, shaping futuristic atmospheres, skittering seamlessly between BPMs and tempos. Laced with a Brazilian funk element, ‘WTF‘, is playful and inventive ripe with bassy beats and quickfire bars of BXKS; “When people hear that they just go mad” he says.
Ryder made ‘I Been’, with West London vocalist Daniella Wizard, when he was 17 in a hotel in Albania – a track that was firmly ahead of its time when he created it. The track’s groove was inspired by Kaytranada and Channel Tres.
Ryder is living proof of the internet’s democratising power, scoring huge online attention for his #skeptacore project eventually meaning he would make an entire EP 48 Hours in a studio with the grime and rap legend himself. Ryder also counts J Dilla, Labi Siffre, Moby and Kanye’s production style as musical influences – avant-garde sounds that have soul that don’t always fit into a strictly 4×4 template. Ryder continues to explore his eclectic tastes through his DJing career having made his debut at The Lower Third with Shortee Blitz in 2024.
Having been granted a scholarship to London’s prestigious BIMM Institute through Spotify. The time and effort he’d put into music paid off and he moved down to London from Hull in 2022. Ryder decided to take his music even more seriously, splicing a Skepta acapella over a guitar sample and posting it online. This was ‘#skeptacore pt.1’. These attracted views, and he kept going, posting parts two and three. Within two hours of posting the third, friends were ringing him about the rapidly escalating views: ‘Have you seen it?’
Something about Ryder’s reimagination of iconic Skepta bars with inventive production really captured the attention of an online generation. He’d put sparring lyrics over jazz and garage fusion, gaining millions of views on TikTok. Labels started DMing him. Ryder was contacted by Skepta, asking him to come to the studio in London to work on an EP.
48 Hours was the result, the name a literal description of their time spent in the studio together. It featured two brand new tracks with Ryder, Skepta and rising vocalist Dré Six, and #skeptacore parts one to three.
Connect: https://linktr.ee/ryderwho_
Ryder & BXKS Photo credit: Remy Bourdeau
