If You Name Your Songs After Fast Food, Should You Make Commission?
Ty Sorrell's 'Fast Food' EP is worth more than all the Dollar Menu combined.
Good not-so-super Tuesday music fans,
Ty Sorrell is a rising musician based in Richmond, Virginia which is a hotspot for rap battles in the U.S.
What makes Ty so special is their eclecticism in music. Ty seems to be influenced by everything that’s around them. It doesn’t matter if it’s a video game or completely opposing genres of music. Who knew that Zelda could be so influential?
Don’t forget to order your Hi-Chews and Arizonas on goPuff before reading. (Yes, those are all track names from the EP.)
Before we get to the interview, here’s some news you should know about:
Virginia-based artist Amir Bilal release five-track album XVIII. Our favorite track is half sunny/salt in the wound. Listen to it on Spotify or Bandcamp!
Asbury Park-based Teenage Halloween drops first single, Stationary, from their highly-anticipated album.
St. Louis-based Gravy Dave and the Funk Biscuits drop Live Fast, Play Hard on Bandcamp. Our favorite track from it is Holdin’ On. Give it a listen!
Now, the moment you’ve been waiting for. Give it up for Ty Sorrell!
The Riff: Where are you originally from and when did you get into music?
Ty: So I'm actually from Dumfries, Virginia, which is about an hour north of Richmond. I grew up there. I was born in P.G. County, Maryland. My biological family is from Kentland, a hood in Maryland. But basically, it’s a long, dramatic story, but I'll try to make it short for you.
I was born with the Sorrell family. My mom had epilepsy and my dad wasn't in the picture; still don’t know who he is. I had two brothers, two sisters and I wasn’t with them for that long. My mom couldn’t really take care of me; she was having seizures a lot. Also, around the time she was dating a guy by the name of Darryl Hawkins and he was thought to believe that he was my father at first, but found out he wasn’t. By that point, the Hawkins family was attached to me. The Hawkins family was from the Columbia Pike, Alexandria area in D.C. as well and basically, they made a name for themselves, if you want to put it that way. They did well. So that family, by this point in time, had moved.
So I found out that I wasn’t of Darryl Hawkins. The family was connected to me, so they took me in anyway because they were saying, “We don't know what's going to happen to you.” The situation over there in Maryland was a lot different, it was a different environment, they didn't really know what was going to happen, and they didn't really think that that was an environment for me to grow up in. So they took me in, just out of pure love, I guess you could say, but it gets murky there because some people are still in denial about what happened with Darryl. I ended up there, grew up there with them. First I was in Alexandria, moved to Springfield. By this point, I was probably two or three and then I got to Dumfries and that's where I grew up and became most of what I am now.
My dad was a musician, he played for multiple churches—and these are the Hawkins, not my biological family. So the people who took me in, my dad, he played for multiple churches. He noticed early on that I had an ear, because I loved Zelda. I would play Zelda and I would play Dreamcast, I think it was a rocket power game. Anyway, it didn't matter.
In all the games, I would hear the music and start repeating them and singing them out loud. What made him realize it, was that Zelda for instance, there's music in that game, but it's not orchestrated or arranged in a particular way. It's not a catchy song, you know what I mean? So he started to take note because I would sing them back and it would be exactly how it was. I would pick out main melodies; I would really pick apart the music in the game. Then, he was just like, “Okay, well, if you can do that, then let's see what you do at a piano.” So he took me in and then gave me piano lessons. I learned from this lady named Joan and learning from her completely changed my whole ear, my whole everything. I still think, to this day, that if I didn't take piano lessons, I don't think I would have gotten into making my own music.
I did piano lessons for about 10 years and then I realized that I didn't want to play other people's music anymore; I wanted to make my own. I was like, “Man, I really want to learn the guitar.” So I self-taught myself the guitar, just because I thought the piano was old and that was the next shiny thing as a kid. So I learned guitar off of learning my favorite songs at the time, YouTube-ing them, getting tabs and stuff like that. I got good at playing the songs and then I just got good at guitar all together, to the point where I would write my own songs. By this point, I was in middle school, I was in seventh grade. I formed a band, at the time it was a metal band and did that for a little bit.
The Riff: It’s clear that you’re quite the prolific musician, between piano, guitar, and making beats. Do being experimental and prolific go hand-in-hand with you?
Ty: I never really thought of it but I think music has just always been fascinating and it's still to this day. I still feel like that and I think because of that, my curiosity and my burning drive and passion to do it. I think that's all it really is; just wanted to make music. I didn't start thinking about if people would like it, until I started rapping. I just kept doing it; I just wanted to do it. I remember putting out some of those Indie projects and this one guy in particular was like, “How is this being produced so fast?” Basically he didn't believe me that I was making them. I think that what you get now is just a polished version, of all the years of just wanting to make stuff. When hip hop came though, I will say, that's when identity became tied to everything ad that's when stuff became really real for me. Again, the whole situation with my biological family, I didn't know any of that until I was 16 years old.
The Riff: What’s the music scene like in Richmond?
Ty: When I came down here and decided to move here, it was between that time from graduating high school, deciding to not go to college and that was one of the hardest things because my parents were so gung-ho about me going to college. I was prepared for them, I was prepared to get kicked out the house, and I was prepared to either couch surf or be homeless.
I've always had problems with school. There were issues that I had in school as a young kid that just didn't really get much attention. I was even refused medication and stuff like that, you know what I mean? So it got to a point where after high school ended, I was like, “Man, I just want to be done, this is too much.”
So I didn't go to school, I made that decision. I started coming out of Richmond because Alfred, and at the time Afro Cat, who now is known as Clwdkrk, they were in Richmond doing house shows. House shows, for those who don't know, are a big part of Richmond rap culture, Richmond show culture. Venues in Richmond did not allow rap music to be played for a while, so a lot of us had to just perform at house shows.
I still feel like that and I think because of that, my curiosity and my burning drive and passion to do it. I think that's all it really is; just wanted to make music.—Ty Sorrell
It wasn't until this thing called the Rec Room, which is like a residency at The Camel, which is a venue here in Richmond, started. It was where producers could come in and play beats. From that point—I'm pretty sure people would go in and freestyle over the beat sometimes. Then after that, The Camel was one of the first places to allow rap to be performed there and then different things started following suit. Strange Matters and other famous venues, they let rap acts perform but only if they were touring acts; more well-known people.
So Alfcat, as they would call themselves, they were doing house shows at the time and Alfred really urged me to come down to the city and just see what's going on; just get a glimpse. That was when I came down and I would call it “scoping” at the time. That was when I met Rob Gibson, that was when I met bstfrnd, Old Neon and all these people are key to the scene because everyone plays a part. So Jefferson started Rec Room, also started Satellite Syndicate, which is a collective of producers and became this thriving scene at this time. So many different artists playing, it was just great. I loved what I saw, I was inspired and it just seemed like the whole city was full of art. So I was like, “Man this is the environment I need to be in.” I needed a change of scenery, I needed to be in that environment, I needed a reason to really go in. So I left and came down here and moved. I came down with $9 so that should tell you how sudden and how much I really wanted it. So I came down here and I've been down here ever since. Since then, I realized that it's really its own world. As a matter of fact, if you're into battle rap, Richmond's like the hub of battle rap right now.
This interview was edited for concision and clarity.
Photos by Emeka Ndubueze and Byron Koranteng.
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