Dicey Ray is planning to release his long awaited debut EP before the year’s end. The Baltimore based rapper started gaining traction back in 2021 with the release of his debut single, “Real OG.”
Dicey Ray, 22, initially wasn’t hard pressed to rap. Matter of fact, he was pursuing his dream of playing basketball at the highest level and never even considered a career in the music industry. While he was playing for IMG Academy’s post-graduate national team, a team that was ranked inside the top 10 nationally and coached by John Mahoney, Dicey Ray was looking forward to having a breakout year after securing a starting spot. He was able to record a double-double against the Florida State Champs and place 4th in the annual dunk contest before he suffered a gruesome leg injury that cut his campaign short in December of 2018.
Fast forward to today and Dicey Ray has stepped away from the game and is making a name for himself on the music scene. When asked about the transition he said, “It was hard. I mean to give up everything you dedicated your life to. Early mornings, late nights, blood, sweat and tears. Not missing a single (expletive) day… I had a purpose, I wanted to make it to the NBA yeah, but I really wanted to show all the kids out there that look like me that it’s possible. It took a while, and I’m not all the way there yet for real, but I switched lanes and I have the same outlook now with music. If you believe you can achieve, don’t let anyone tell you different or try to limit what you can do.”
Dicey Ray has not collaborated with any other artist to date and is planning to have no features on his EP as well. When asked about this decision and who, if anyone, he would want to collaborate with he replied, “It’s on purpose, I’m just putting my foot in the water and I want people to like my music cause they actually (expletive) with it. It would be nice to get a big feature and gain a lot of fans that way, but I’m a hustler. I have no problem getting it out the mud. I believe in myself and I make music that I would listen to. (Expletive) near every bar you pick out of my songs could be an Instagram caption. There are a lot of people I want to collab with for sure though. It’s all the people I listen to or grew up listening to Drake, Lil Wayne, Young Thug, Lil Baby, Lil Uzi, A Boogie, Lil Durk, Youngboy, Polo G, Gunna, Future, J. Cole, Moneybagg Yo, Rod Wave, Roddy Rich, Kodak, Lil Tjay… all of them. Nav would be cool, I think that would be one for the books and if someone on Juice WRLD’s team puts me on I’d go stupid on that track.”
To learn more about Dicey Ray’s creative process we asked him what a regular day of songwriting looked like for him and how long it takes him to complete a song. He explained, “I try not to show it but I deal with anxiety and depression on a daily basis. It’s way easier for me to be creative when I can get in the right state of mind. Sometimes I’ll take some shrooms or pour up but I usually just roll up a couple blunts and just listen to the beat on repeat. I’ll start either humming a melody or freestyling until I get a sense of the story I’m trying to tell over the beat. I start writing while the beat’s still playing and I just organize all my thoughts as the song starts to form. There’s always double meanings and things you won’t pick up on the first couple plays in there. It takes me about 8 hours to make a full song with an intro, 2 verses and a chorus. There’s been days where I really get in the zone and I can knock out 2 songs in a day. I’ll probably get faster over time but I believe in quality over quantity.”
Dicey Ray’s musical style incorporates articulate lyrics filled with cadences and wordplay on top of hard-hitting 808 filled beats that leave fans bobbing their heads and rapping along. Keep an eye out for Dicey Ray’s Debut EP, scheduled to release sometime in November, as he looks to make his mark in the industry.
Check out Dicey Ray on:Instagram | Spotify | Apple Music