Moving Between Worlds: A Conversation with Raleigh Ritchie

While he is arguably a widely recognizable face now thanks to his role as Unsullied leader Grey Worm in HBO’s Game of Thrones, it may surprise you that Jacob Anderson, who goes by the stage name Raleigh Ritchie, styles himself primarily as a musician first and foremost, and has released three EPs under his name to date. Hailing from Bristol, England, Ritchie now bases himself out of London, writing and recording his signature soulful sound that touches on the nitty gritty of human relationships and overcoming insurmountable obstacles in life. With the music video for his single “Stronger Than Ever” having reached over 1.7 million views on YouTube alone, this is one R&B artist you should keep an eye on. Between his live shows, making music and filming for Game of Thrones, HYPETRAK was able to catch up with Ritchie prior to his concert in London to talk about the relationship between singing and acting, his songwriting process, and the stories behind his music.

Which came first, acting or music?

I’ve been writing music since I was about 14 so music came first. But I’m very much of the mind that there’s no reason why any of us can’t do more than one thing. So music physically came first, but I like them both for different reasons.

And when you first got into music, was it always vocals, or was it playing in a band?

No, singing was sort of an accident. I wanted to just write things. I didn’t know what I wanted to write. I didn’t know if I wanted to be a music or film journalist. I just wanted to write stuff, and I started writing songs at school, writing for other singers and rappers at school. I tried to make beats, which were just like Neptunes light beats. Because the songs I was writing were really personal, I would always try and guide the people that were singing them to make it mean what I had it mean. One of them just got fed up and was like, “Well, you sing it. If it means so much to you, you try it.” And I did, and she was like, “Cool, you can kind of hit the right notes.” So I just thought the best way to communicate with my own writing was to do it myself.

What kind of skills do you think are shared between acting and singing? How do they coexist next to each other?

They kind of don’t really. They’re not for me anyway. When I’m shooting a video, I guess I know how a set works and that can be quite helpful, but apart from that they don’t, because I didn’t know anything about acting when I first started writing songs, so I write songs in the same way I did when I was 15.

Just kind of trial and error and going for it?

Yeah, I feel like it’s just spilling your head out, like empty out your head of a certain thing, and then I always make sense of a song afterwards. I don’t think about what it’s about too much while I’m writing it, I just write what I think and work it out later. You just throw it all down.

So you can translate music videos into your music career. Are there any other things that you might have learnt during acting that you could use as an artist, like being confident on stage?

They’re such different things. First time I got on stage as an adult, I was opening for Kendrick Lamar. I used to do open mic nights back home in Bristol, but that was very different to the first time I was with Kendrick Lamar in Birmingham, and nothing could have ever prepared me for that. It was so different to anytime I’ve been on stage as an actor. In terms of confidence, it didn’t help. It’s also because music is such a personal thing – it’s like getting out and telling people all of your shit, whereas if you’re acting you’re pretending to be someone else.

Your sound is quite energetic and even quite aggressive sometimes. Where does this kind of emotion come from? Is it all what you’re digesting through life?

I always try to write and record a song in the same day, because you want to keep the emotion that you had when you wrote and use that for when you put down vocals. The way I see it, it’s kind of like screaming into a pillow. When something really bothers you, and you can’t just go around screaming out loud, so it’s the equivalent of putting a pillow in front of my face and screaming into it. So sometimes that comes out in a more aggressive way, but I’m really interested in the idea of contradiction. I think a lot of people’s thoughts come out in contradiction, like in riddles. I really like finding the romance in really dark things, and finding the dark things in romance, or in the nicer things in life. Like finding the opposite in some things.

What are your strengths and weaknesses?

Nothing I hate more than listening to music and feeling like I’m being lied to, or like I’m being played in some way, and I don’t think anyone could ever accuse me of that. I think a weakness is that I’m not one for showing off vocally. I don’t like to belt out if I don’t need to. The vocal has to match what you’re saying, it has to be an emotional thing. The way the music industry is now, especially with reality TV, the bit that [most people] like is the bit where the singer goes really loud and really high, and I’m not that guy, and that might not be as palatable to some people.

That goes back to your first point, where being real is where your strength is.

The worst songs I’ve ever written were the ones where my heart’s not fully in it, or the ones where I was trying to push myself.

Would you be able to share one of the stories behind one of the songs you’ve made?

It’s a weird thing because like I said, when I’m writing a song I don’t know what it’s about at the time, it’s just how I feel, so I just put it down. Recently when I’ve put out songs, people have their own take on it, their own story that makes sense, and that’s not wrong. That’s right if somebody connects to something that’s not about them, but they can see themselves in it. That’s more important than what you mean. It’s only about me when I’m writing it, or when I’m performing it.

You had “Stronger Than Ever” covered by Lily Allen and you got quite a big response on YouTube. Would it be fair to say that you’ve kind of blown up now and this is it? What does this kind of exposure tell you?

I don’t know. I don’t celebrate small victories or large victories. I always feel like I could be doing more. So for me, no amount of YouTube views or SoundCloud views could really make me feel like I made it. I really appreciate it and it’s amazing that people have responded to my music, but I could always do more. For every song I release, I’m always like “I’ve got a better song than that,” and if I haven’t written it then there’s one in me that I can write. I’ll never think that I’ve made it.

You’ve released two projects this year – Black and Blue and Black and Blue Point Two. How do they correlate? Why did you choose the same name for the second one, but as a sequel?

Black and Blue Point Two elaborates on everything so far. It’s a different take, because they’re pretty much just remixes, apart from “Chased.” They’re remixes of my best bits so far. I’d wanted to do something like that, and when I met The Internet we didn’t have an opportunity to sit down and write something from scratch, so I suggested to them, would they be interested in doing their own take of that? I hadn’t put out a lot of official remixes, and I wanted somebody else to interpret musically what they heard in my songs, and I thought they’d be perfect for it. They said yes, and sent them back in a week, which was really cool. Black and Blue Point Two is more chilled out and laidback. I had no idea we were going to do Black and Blue Point Two at that point so it was a real labor of love. There was a lot of thought that went into Black and Blue, and I really wanted it to feel coherent. I almost wanted to feel like a mini-album. I wanted to make sure all the songs were telling the same story.

So the songs are placed where they are so they follow a story?

Yeah. “Stronger Than Ever” and “Freefall” are about very similar things — “Stronger Than Ever” is about when I first got to London and I was trying to work it out and it was a bit scary. “Freefall” is about when I’m already in London, and it’s almost like getting complacent about me and here, and the mediocrity of it, and falling into the rat race of everybody else. “Bloodsport” and “Overdose” are about relationships that are destructive in some way, where you feel beaten up. All of the songs are about getting beaten black and blue. That’s why it’s called Black and Blue, because all these songs are about different ways emotionally of being damaged by something.

How do you balance acting and making music?

It’s never been a problem. I haven’t done a lot of acting in the last year. Game of Thrones is like a nice break. I get to go away for a few weeks and pretend I’m a little warrior man, and it’s just really fun. That’s like my holiday for the year, and the music is all-consuming.

Would you say music is like your passion project and acting is work, or vice versa?

I’d like to say that neither is either, but truthfully, I’ll never be able to stop writing songs until the day I die, even if nobody is listening to them. That’s never gonna happen, whereas acting is something that I really enjoy doing, and I don’t see why I can’t keep doing it. At the moment it’s this thing that I’ve been thinking about a lot, and I think about it when I look at my little sisters as well, because they’re trying to work out what they wanna do with their lives. I feel like there’s no reason why we can’t all just do what we want, what makes us happy. For me it’s not a case of “I’ve got to do one thing and we stick to that”. I just want to be happy and do the things I enjoy. I need music, because it’s the way I work out my shit. It’s just really cool that it so happens that it gets released and people want to hear it, or seem to want to hear it. Acting is something that I really enjoy, but that doesn’t make it less important or more important than anything else. There are other things that I like doing. I like writing other things. I want to do it all, and I don’t see why anybody can’t do that either.

What does fusion mean to you?

Fusion is the marrying up of ideas that initially seem very separate and different, and finding the similarities in the different things and mixing them all together. That’s what I think fusion is.

Where do you want to take your music and acting?

I just want to see where it goes. I never think too far into the future in terms of where I wanna be. Things will take me where they take me, and there’s not really a lot I can do about it. Certainly in terms of music, I’ve already started to think a lot about my second album and I haven’t even finished my first album yet. So there are definitely things that I want to do, but who knows if I’ll get to do them. I kind of don’t have a plan. I’ll just see how it goes. I don’t think you can have a plan because shit happens.

The Internet have released a remix of “Stronger Than Ever.” They are quite contemporary producers. Are there certain artists that you are keeping your eye on and would like to collaborate with, and perhaps feature in your next releases?

There are lots of people that I’m very excited about, watching where they go. With collaborations, it’s got to be something natural. Sometimes you see collaborations that might be two people that really like each other’s music, but there’s no reason past that, and I want any collaboration to be as organic as possible and be for the right reason. I know we were talking before we started about all the things we could do, but you’ve got to stop and think if you should do them. So I’m open to collaborations, but it’s just if it’s right. It’s got to make sense, it’s got to be for a reason, otherwise it seems kind of pointless. So nobody specifically in my head.

What do you think the crowd can expect from your act tonight, and is there anything forthcoming that we should keep an eye on?

Hopefully I’ll be doing my own tour at the end of October, but only time will tell. The album should be coming out not long after that, which would be my debut full-length album. It’s got a name but I’m not going to tell you yet. In terms of what you can expect from shows, I’ve always wanted to do a punk show. I want to get people jumping around. I think people have expected me and my show to be quite a smooth, laidback affair and it couldn’t be further from that. When I go to a show, I want to pogo. I want to jump around and sing along and have a laugh. I want it to be fun, and that’s my number one rule of thumb at my shows. So you can expect energy and jumping around and unpredictability.

Watch some of his latest music videos: