Ricky Bats Is The Evolution hip Hop Needs
When an artist has that soul to their music there’s nothing you can do to shake it. With a thing as subjective as music, it’s pretty tough to say what is guaranteed to work with the variety being infinite of musical choice. As much as that is so, there’s no denying that when the music has soul to it, you can’t help but feel the music and Ricky Bats has consistently proven to his fans how talented and unbreakable he is in making his music.
Being born and raised in the South Bronx area of New York City, Ricky Bats has climbed his way up the steepest of steps over the years. His competence as a lyricist is clear to anyone hearing the complexities within his rhyme scheme bars.
At the age of 13 after being inspired by friends growing up in the South Bronx, he wrote his first rap with the help of his brother, Bang. Back then, it was so common to see kids rapping in building lobbies or by the corner store about what they see on the streets. During his rough teenage years, Bats fell into the street life and began selling drugs. And by his late teens, he was incarcerated and, in and out of trouble, he spent most of the next two decades in prison. During his stay in prison, he proved to the world how unstoppable he is in making his music and recorded his first mixtape “Bars Behind Bars: True Story No Gimmicks” where he talked exclusively about his real life experience in the hood.
In November 2014, despite being in prison, he released the mixtape “Bronx Born Prison Raised Vol. 1” and less than 3 months after coming back home, he came out strong and released his second mixtape “Bronx Born Prison Raised Vol. 2” in July 2015.
In April 2016, Bats was released from parole, and he dropped his first EP titled “Freedom”. During this period, he embarked on his first nationwide tour, which was named the “Freedom Tour”. During the six week tour, he traveled from New York to California with his team spreading his music and gaining new fans. The “Freedom” EP showcases fire such as “On My Block” featuring Maino and “Gossip Girls” featuring Dyce Payne. He then coordinated and released the Gotham City Boys’ first mixtape titled “Rise Of A City”, which was released in February 2017.
A month later, in March 2017, Bats dropped the first single off his currently unreleased first album titled “My Crew Hungry”. The single “My Crew Hungry” featuring Uncle Murda is an anthem and has gotten extensive airplay on both Shade45 and Massachusetts WBRK Star 101.7fm, The song’s music video is now playing on BET and Music Choice. Also in March 2017, Bats attended and performed at the renowned SXSW Festival in Austin, TX with collaborations, such as Maino, Sheek Louch, Tony Sunshine, Mysonne, Hell Rell, Uncle Murda, and Cory Gunz. Ricky Bats along with his Gotham City Boys movement is widely recognized as one of the hardest working and fastest rising indie artists coming out of the Bronx.
In 2021, Ricky Bats teamed up with Fredro Starr from legendary rap group ONYX where he recorded several notable records produced by the legend himself such as Every Day with Hard Luck, Good Lovin’ with Scrip Scott and most recently Lickin’ Off In Hip Hop with Da Inphamus Amadeus, which was then released under the 100 MAD imprint. His music is a regular on Shade45 as well as BET Jams and Music Choice.
To stand out in music, especially a genre like Hip Hop, an artist has to have a presence. Not only presence but a commanding energy to them that makes you get invested in their artistry, that present for us to buy into. That is what separates an artist who you only listen to, and an artist who you start to keep up with. Ricky Bats brings that confident swagger to his approach that makes you want to stay connected with his new song “Lickin’ Off In Hip Hop”. All of Bats’ videos and music can be found on his official website — RickyBats.com. Besides his website, you can find his mixtapes and singles on Soundcloud, DatPiff, Audiomack, ITunes, Amazon, Google Play and his music videos on his YouTube channel.
Check out “Lickin’ Off In Hip Hop” his latest single on YouTube:
In addition to his music career, Ricky Bats hosts a radio show “Ride Ya Groove” on WBRK in Massachusetts, maintains his independent record label Gotham City Music Group Inc. and has acted in small onscreen roles including “About That Life” and the Showtime series “Escape at Dannemora”.
For more updates, you can follow him on;
Instagram — @rickybats