MPR Riche Rich is here to remind you to “Live In The Moment,” which is also the name of his standout single that was released at the top of this year. Immediately when you hear “Granny we made it! We poppin’ bottles we counting this money, we standing on tables,” you already know the good vibes that are about to ensue.
Hailing from the West Side of Detroit, the rising star is here to spread nothing but motivation and positivity, ingrained with a hustler’s mentality since he can remember. Growing up in a family of 5 and having to take care of his siblings and family, Riche Rich prides himself in his humility and entrepreneur mindset, while using his marketing expertise to push and brand himself as a recording artist.
Riche describes himself as an “entrepreneur, family man, businessman, but the most important thing right now is artist. That’s my deliverance to the world about who I am, what I do, and why I do it. Being an artist gave me the flavor that gives people the cool look that people attract to, versus giving it to them straightforward about what it is that they need to be doing, how they should be doing it, or what part of life matters. Gave them the different appearance for a different situation to give them the same gain.”
MPR stands for Money, Power, Respect, and MPR Riche Rich is the true definition of a go-getter. Beyond music, Rich operates a podcast and plays every role in the art of filmmaking. He’s also writing his own book titled “Life Without The Possibility To See Daylight.”
AllHipHop: You’re from Detroit. I feel like more than ever, Detroit is having its moment in hip-hop.
MPR Riche Rich: Detroit got a crazy wave right now! That’s the crazy thing about it: when I left Detroit, this was 2014, it was hard to get the Detroit sound even to be heard. We had people that were hot, but they were just hot in the city. They weren’t globally accepted. Now, they’re taking it to another platform of letting other artists in the door, which we still haven’t necessarily crossed over a certain plateau because there’s still gatekeepers there. But we’ve seen Big Sean there, we’ve seen Tee Grizzley. That’s industry, and that’s where it crossed over versus us being independent and being stuck in a certain category.
AllHipHop: Do you consider yourself different from the other Detroit rappers?
MPR Riche Rich: Yes, very well. The difference between me and them is they keep a certain image or a certain look on how they’re seen. I take it to another level because I’m more of a global type of person. I got songs overseas with people in Greece that are superstars. I’ve got songs with people in Europe, other countries. I’m not more so trying to be seen in just the city, it’s a worldly thing versus I just wanna be known in America or to these certain type of people.
I’m literally trying to be known all over the world, we’re trying to plan a world tour based off of this “Live in the Moment” song. That’s what separates the category, bringing knowledge to the game that I come with, versus what most artists are doing. They’re just musicians. They don’t know the business, they’re not trying to learn the business. They’re trying to get signed, versus me not trying to get signed and do the same thing that signed artists are doing.
AllHipHop: You were actually in the military. Were you doing that before the music?
MPR Riche Rich: Yeah, I joined in 2008 and it kept going till 2013 when I got out. But I had an incident inside where I was in prison. Once I got out, I said “I’m gonna just push music.” Because I was already living the rapper’s lifestyle, I just wasn’t a rapper. I’m a step into it and take it serious, do it the right way. Have something you can be known for honorably, without people looking at you with judgment. That’s why I went to the military: to have a legacy. To say you did something with yourself, to say you didn’t waste your time. When it was “hey, what do you do next?” — because to most people, that looked like I failed because I got out.
It really was all a learning process for me because it showed me how to move now that I’m in the music. I have more patience. I have more longevity. I have more tenacity to the situation. I’m understanding. Everything’s more enhanced because I went through a certain training that the average person never even went through. That’s what gives me a different outlook on life and that’s what separates me again from a regular Detroit artist.
Nobody from Detroit has been in the military. If they have, I don’t really know that part. But in today’s society, most people haven’t been to the military coming out of Detroit. Even when I went to the military, it was a big deal. “You talking about going to the military? We in the military in the streets!” It took it to another level doing that.
AllHipHop: Were you doing music in the military?
MPR Riche Rich: No, I didn’t do music in the military. I was being a soldier at that point.
AllHipHop: What’d you learn about yourself?
MPR Riche Rich: I learned a lot of stuff. I went airborne, so I was jumping out of planes. I learned how to not lash out to things, like you’ve gotta be able to hold so much stuff. You’ve gotta be able to take in so much stuff because there’s so many things happening. What they’re training you for is to be ready for any given moment, any situation. No matter if you’ve got bullets coming at you, you still gotta be locked and loaded. You still gotta be aware. You can’t run and there’s bullets coming at you. You gotta think to shoot because your battle might be getting hit, you gotta help him and shoot.
It taught you things differently than the streets. The streets teach you to be aware, but this was another level of awareness because it was trained awareness, versus your natural abilities and your natural instincts of being like “Oh something’s going on, get out of there” or do something to react to it. This taught you how to react, why to react, when to react. It was a different type of training versus “Oh, I’m just aware because of my surroundings.” It was tactics and training that even somebody like Detroit D.U.S.T, he’s going crazy right now with the tactical training.
AllHipHop: What is tactical training?
MPR Riche Rich: Where he’s showing people how to get out of situations. When you’re in situations, you gotta learn how to get out of them. Seeing that is a whole nother platform of that’s what we was taught. Now, can you use this in real life? You learn how to use it in real life versus just seeing something on TV, and that’s the difference.
AllHipHop: Who are your biggest influences? Who made you want to do music?
MPR Riche Rich: I was a big fan of Big Herk, Blade, Trick Trick, those guys were people who I idolized coming up because they were in the city. Then you have the Lil Wayne’s, the Jay Z’s, the Dr. Dre’s, Master P’s and all of them. Yo, these guys are doing this on a whole nother level. At the given time, I was just a student. I wasn’t really in it to be a musician, I just like the game. What could I do to fit my description for the same thing that I already was doing and living like? It was music. That’s when I stepped in here and said “I’m a take it serious,” and I haven’t looked back.
AllHipHop: How’d you build your social media following?
MPR Riche Rich: I started off doing a lot of promotion and marketing. I used to wrap vehicles. I still do this same type of stuff, just not as heavy as I used to. I used to run from every showcase to every festival to every Bike Week and REVOLT concerts, all that. I used to wrap vans and I wrapped the party bus, I wrapped the box truck. I’d ride with my image all over, then I’d have super extra crazy marketing material. I had t-shirts, CDs, stickers, dog tags, stuff that was memorabilia for people. I’d do that over and over, did that for 4 or 5 years. Our first tour, we made $25K just off merch. My music was nowhere near the level that it is today, but it wasn’t even about the music, it was the marketing campaign. That’s what showed me “oh, if you can do this like this, you can really take it to another level.”
Because people are see-ers. If you look like this, they don’t know how to separate you from this or that, and that was the whole thing. It was the look that gave everybody the perception of “okay, he is somebody.” They didn’t know who I was, but the image and the look. If you see somebody arrive with 5 wrapped vehicles, they’re definitely doing something. They got merch for you to check out, you’ve got music playing in every one of the cars. You doing showcases on the street.
People still to this day tap in with me like “Bro, I remember you from SXSW” or “I remember you from Bike Week and you was doing this. I can’t believe where you at now.” You gave people hope way back then, they seen the process. Now, you still independent? And you still working? It’s giving those same people like damn, I really can probably do this.” A lot of the people when I started to now, which is 7 years, you gotta imagine how many people quit within this time. Just because it’s too hard, it’s too much. They expect so much from you and give you so less being independent. It was a whole vibe forreal.
AllHipHop: What inspired “Live in the Moment”?
MPR Riche Rich: The inspiration to “Live in the Moment” was the pandemic. Everybody’s depressed, everybody’s down, everybody’s social distancing. Everybody’s gotta stay in this little combined area. You not around family, you not around nobody. When we came up with “Live in the Moment,” this is something to give people hope again. Give people inspiration, give people a feel-good. Because even when we was stuck, we were still listening to drill music or a certain type of music. It’s harder music. I want to give people a good feeling, a good time. Even if they’re not having a good time you can wake up and say “granny we made it!” It’s giving you hope.
What really started it is once I dropped the song, people would be DMing me: “Bro, I wake up to your song, I go to sleep to your song because I lost my granny last year to Covid.” Or “I lost my granny 5 years ago.” It’s those types of things make people feel like yo, this is inspiration, this is giving me something that I couldn’t have gotten without this song and that’s when it was like nah, this is it. So, then I just started marketing it crazy.
AllHipHop: How much are you investing with the marketing?
MPR Riche Rich: We’re going crazy. In the last 6 months, we put in $50K into the marketing and promotion campaign, along with DJs, different radio people, different interviews, different campaigns. I did something different that really worked. I went with a meme campaign versus a dance campaign on TikTok, that’s what everybody was picking up. Everybody’s like “who is the person behind it?” Once they started seeing the person, they’re like “and he’s interesting? He has horns on his head. He has the look, he has the image. He got a vibe.” That made the traction pick up even more because “oh, this is fire.” The song’s undeniable, then to meet the person behind it, it was perfect timing.
It’s not like I came out of nowhere, I’ve been working for the last 7 years, dedicated to the music. Now, he finally caught one that the world loves. Now he’s pushing it in a way that nobody else is doing, because everybody’s doing it a certain way. They’re all doing it with the dance songs through TikTok. I ain’t gonna do that because it’s saturated. Everybody’s price points is way too high. How do I keep up with a campaign that an industry artist is gonna have, and do it through the memes? Because the memes wasn’t talking. So then you run a meme campaign and boom, next thing you know the songs at 100 million streams later. How did you do that in 6 months? It was because I used a platform that was resourceful, but people wasn’t using it.
That’s what really took it off, it went crazy on TikTok and on Instagram. From there, everybody is singing the song. We’re getting crowds to rock out to the song and we haven’t even performed here before, but they know the song because it’s very hard to not watch a meme. When it’s something funny, something chaotic, something controversial, they’re going to watch it time and time again. You’re making it 17 to 19 seconds long, they’re going to watch it over and over and over and the words are getting stuck in their head. “Granny we made it! We poppin’ bottles, we countin this money.” Its repetitiveness really won.
AllHipHop: Where did you shoot the music video at?
MPR Riche Rich: The music video was crazy, we shot that in Miami. The important part about the music video that a lot of people don’t know is I brought all my family instead of having video vixens or the homies, exotic cars, yachts, and mansions and all this. It was do this shoot in Miami, but bring your family. I flew my grandmother down, my mother, my sisters, my cousins, my wife, my kids. I put the whole family vibe. Usually when you see a Miami shoot, it’s gang in there. It’s all crazy, it’s vixens. Nah, I want this to be a family-oriented song.
MPR Riche Rich: I dropped it January 1st so that everybody’s resolution would be “live in the moment.” That was all marketing coming from my understanding, because I’ve been doing it for so long. I know how to make something break, I just gotta break it in. That’s what really turnt it up. This is it, and it’s been working since then.
AllHipHop: Why haven’t you released since then?
MPR Riche Rich: Because I want to push one song. As an independent artist, you gotta imagine what it takes for a budget. To push a song, you gotta come into it with a certain bag. If I start a new song, now gotta start what I did with this song all over. My idea is hey, just push this one song a year, year and a half, and then come with a new song. I’ve created new music, but I’m not releasing it because then I gotta put a budget behind it to promote and market it — while I’m still trying to get the world to feel this song. To me, there’s nothing next right now because the next thing is the next campaign.
We went from a TikTok campaign to an Instagram campaign to an iTunes campaign to a Youtube campaign to a tour campaign to a club campaign. Just with one song, you can do so many different campaigns it’ll take you 3 years. I have a whole plan for the next 2 years of what plateaus, what people I want to tap in with. I got the plan and I’m executing a plan by tapping into each platform that’s mandatory. One thing a lot of people don’t know about me is I never used the media.
All my stuff was self-driven, it was me and my team talking about me. Now we’re going for the media to talk about us because that’s what the world accepts as “this is how you made it.” But to me, I’m knowing no independent artist is doing what I’m doing because an industry artist aren’t even touching 100 million streams. Industry artists aren’t touching the people who I’ve tapped in with in doing certain things.
We know because we’ve seen it. We’ve watched it for the last 7 years. It was about us making our own standpoint because we’re trying to stay independent. If you don’t do what I do, then you’ve got to sign to a label because you gotta get all of these things from the machine and everything else that makes this stuff work from the label. We all know that everything takes a budget. To do a press run, that’s a budget. To do a marketing campaign, that’s a budget. To do a DJ run, that’s a budget. Everything’s a budget.
As an indie, you gotta pace yourself and that’s what I always did. Let me build a name for myself first, then come when I’ve got the right one and go with it. I’ve seen a lot of people waste money on major press and radio runs, and it wasn’t it. The song wasn’t it. They didn’t solidify if the song was it, and that’s what I did.
I waited until I had the “it” factor, and then I’m introducing myself to all the media and blogs. When everybody finds out about me, they’re like “how didn’t I really know about you, but you’re lit?” But you’re not lit to us, because the media has its own campaign, the marketing has its own campaign, the DJ’\s have their own campaign. I could be lit with the media, but never tapped in with the DJs and they’re like “I don’t know you.” Or I could be lit with the DJs and never tap in with the media and they’re like “I don’t know you.” Everything is a campaign. Just ’cause I’m lit with the hot artists, they can’t help me. They have their own campaign, and the reason they’re lit is because they’re running social media campaigns. They’re running marketing campaigns, press campaigns. It was all about pacing myself and doing it the right way, and not wasting $50K to $100K on something that wasn’t it. That’s why I never really tapped in with everybody.
The first time I tapped in with you was at the video shoot with Blueface and Fatboy, I was there. I’m like “yo, this is dope.” Since then I’ve been following your campaign, I’m like “oh no, she goes crazy.” Iit was one of them things that if I didn’t know, it was because I was never in the right room. But what you do organically is crazy. You know your fanbase and your following, how you move and that’s perfect, because it’s your world and you live within it. You don’t necessarily have to worry about this or that person because you created your own momentum.
Now that you’ve got it, who can stop it? This run that I’m on now is like, give the media the same look that you’ve been giving the world on your own. It’s not too many people that’s coming to you that’s independent with too many followers, high engagement, tapped in with all the celebrities, all the influencers. I know all the influencers and I hang with these guys regularly, but it’s not that they can even help me, it’s how I do it for me, and that’s what I haven’t learned.
AllHipHop: When did you get the horns?
MPR Riche Rich: We’ve been doing the horns since about 2017 or 2018. I’d be off and on with the horns, then I’d do this halo thing. The horns is the goat. Knowing what I was doing, knowing what I was putting on, I’m the greatest of all time. No one could tell me that I’m not if I feel that way. How do I show somebody the goat in real life? They visually see it, and then I speak it? Then it’s a belief. Go with the goat, what would be better than a goat horns? Everybody that sees me: “oh I get it, you’ve got the chin hair like the goat. You’ve got the horns,” and now it makes sense. “Oh, that was crazy marketing.”
Once it gets told and the world sees it, they’re all gonna pick up on it like “yo, this is crazy.” Think about Kodak: when everybody seen him with the hair, the world picked up on it because the blogs picked up on it. The media picked up on it, but you’ve gotta get the media and the blogs to pick up on it so that other people, they’re gonna do it. It’s too fire to not do it. “I’ve never seen nothing like this,” so people are gonna pick up on it.
AllHipHop: What can we expect next? What’re you most excited for?
MPR Riche Rich: The “Live in the Moment” tour. After we do the state-wide tour, we’re going to do a world tour. We’re going to try to take this song and make it as big as something like “Thriller” or a Mariah Carey song that gets played every Christmas. I want it to be one of them songs, but for celebrations. I want every award show, every basketball championship, every football championship, every graduation, it’s this celebration song. I want everybody to eventually use it from video games to movies to anything that anybody’s celebrating, they want to live in the moment at that given time. Anybody can say “Granny we made it” at any given time, because it’s about where you’re at versus where you’re going.
That’s the whole key and concept to it, give these people something that they can go with. Don’t think just live in the moment right now, I’d be lying to say that’s what I’m doing. I live in the moment now, but I have a plan for the future. That’s where it changes the whole dynamics of “is he a one-hit wonder?” You could think that, but I’m going to make you feel that way and then give you more fire. You’re like “Oh, he got us in, and now I’m here.” That’s the whole campaign to it.