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Ramon Omari twirls a neon-red, Darth Maul-style, double-bladed lightsaber skywards, and then catches it, mid-spin. “I need this thing on tour, so when motherfuckers run up, I can just be, like, ‘Breach!’” He twists his head and shoots me a devilish grin. Dressed this August afternoon as casually as one can be wearing black leather pants and a gold Jesus pendant, Omari, 25, is hanging at home, a sparse, high-ceiling loft in Manhattan’s tony TriBeCa neighbourhood. But the reference to defending himself is not quite a joke. Just two weeks ago, on-stage in Chicago, Omari picked up a shoe that was propelled onto the stage and only just missed his bopping head. Annoyed, he tossed the shoe back to who he believed the owner was, a Teenager named Freddy Budsworth. But the Nike Air Jordan did not belong to Budsworth so he tossed the shoe back onto the stage. Omari leaped over a barricade and confronted Budsworth, who was smiling, thrilled to be face-to-face with an artist he admired. Misinterpreting the smile, Omari punched the young fan square in the eye. A frenzy ensued, bouncers dived, and moments later Omari dropped the mic and left the stage, but returned about five minutes later, not wanting to let the thousands of fans that payed money to see him down. Then something unexpected happened. Budsworth told a newspaper the next day: “I’m cool about it; I’m not going to be that person that drags a good artists name through the dirt over a misunderstanding. I just want to meet him and be like, ‘Yo, I’m the dude you punched.’ I’m not going to press charges or anything."Four days after the incident, a regretful Omari brought Budsworth onstage at a show in Michigan during his performance of the hit single ‘Ms. Hollywood.’ Afterward, the two had pizza at Omari’s hotel. “We’re good friends now,” Omari says with a smile. Typical Omari. He’s a superstar in the traditional sense – handsome, stylish, a bit of a prima donna. But he carries a tidal wave of insecurities and empathy with him. It’s vulnerability, uncommon in the over-confident world of Hip-Hop, that has made him a fan-favourite amongst young, plainspoken, dysfunctional kids. And despite, or in part because of, these genuinely distressed emotional flare-ups; Ramon Omari has some incredibly loyal fans. “At least 102,000,” he says leaning against a Bathing Ape pillow on a comfortable leather couch and taking a pull on his third weed-filled Swisher of the day. The number becomes a sort of mantra during our interview. Actually, it’s the number of copies sold (102,612 exactly) of his debut album Revelations: Part I, in the first week of its release. Most of the sales were propelled by his breakout single ‘Ms. Hollywood.’ Despite concern from his mother, Omari hasn’t let the success of the debut single of the album go to his, yet. “Mom was always really worried about me getting big and then getting a big head and thinking I was better than everyone,” he says as he gazes out the window, “But I won’t do that. I’m not that kind of person.” Born Ramon Scott Omari in Cleveland, Ramon Omari was born and raised in the lower-middle-class area of Shaker Heights, along with 2 siblings, by his elementary-school-teacher mother, Harriet, and, until he was 10, his father Ronald, a World War II vet and house painter, who died of cancer at age 67 in 1997. “Ron was always a strong force in their lives, and when he got sick, they went through the sickness with him,” says Omari’s mom of her children. “They were there every day after school, even when it got really bad. So it was a devastating time for all of them – Ramon especially, because he was just so young. There’s still sadness in him because of that void.”His father’s passing, though, also spurred Omari’s creativity. After catching him singing under his bed one day, Harriet pushed him to join the school choir. She bought Calvin and the Hobbes anthologies to encourage his drawing. And when he took a serious interest in rap, she supported that, too. Still, the quiet melancholy never disappeared. After being a “C and D student with a teacher mom,” Omari enrolled in Toledo University, only to drop out after a year of studying film.But he was also recording demos, funded by his countless shifts at a local Applebee’s. While we’re talking, Omari excitedly rummages through a stack of scratched up CDs, pulling out one that says Omari: Rap Good with three different home phone numbers written on the back written in black marker. This is his very first demo, from 2003. He slides it into his MacBook, begging us not to judge him on what we were about to hear. “I’m nervous, man!” he says. As the jam starts, Omari begins tapping his retro Air Jordan IV Pure Money $ sneakers on the floor. There’s shoddy, chipmunk soul-style production and a rickety, East Coast-influenced flow, but it’s Omari all over. “I been drunk before, but I’m feeling this shit/I’ve been high before, but I’m feeling this shit,” he raps on Party Night. When the song is over, Omari realizes it’s not so bad. “Man I might redo this and release it!” he says with a wry smile. After leaving Cleveland, Omari roomed with his uncle, former NFL linebacker Jimmy Jay, in the South Bronx. He had $500, no clothes, and no friends. He worked at a few Manhattan clothing stores, before eventually sharing an apartment with his close-friend Chase Graham and the two started developing the famous Ramon Omari style: an atmospheric take on melodic rap, with a dollop of charming, off-key singing. Omari and Graham are still close friends and Omari is currently helping Graham try to break into the industry. But the two no longer live together. “Oh yeah, he was a nightmare to live with,” Omari says as he starts to break out in a laughing fit, “I got mad love for him but there’s a fine line between being clean and being over-the-top, obsessive compulsive and he absolutely crosses that line.”Omari is fidgety but funny in person, using different voices and playing different character as he tells stories. But he’s also deeply sensitive, and can be brutally honest in his lyrics, rhyming about the impact of his father’s death, his mother’s financial struggles and how he had contemplated suicide. That honesty – coupled with an aspirational slacker attitude and a fashion-forward sensibility – has made Omari uniquely marketable. His early association with Bape (he once worked in a Bape store) certified him with a street set and he has signed a deal that will make him the face of Converse for years to come. But despite all that’s riding on his career, he’s still unguarded about the bad decisions he’s made. “I started doing drugs probably six or seven years ago now, and I originally did it to get through interviews,” he says frankly, his brown eyes unflinching. “Because when people started asking a lot of personal questions about my childhood, I found it horribly hard. So I started doing Cocaine to be more upbeat. I’d do bumps and smoke [weed] so I wouldn’t be so edgy. I didn’t know people would be like, ‘So, what was it like when you lost your dad?’” His growing fame unnerved him. “Have you seen Inception? It’s like, everybody’s a projection. Everywhere I go, I’m like, ‘Why am I in this dream?’ It’s like I’m trespassing in this world that’s not my own. And I just wanted to keep it together. That’s what made me start doing drugs.”Omari’s drug use has had severe consequences. “I might not have been shooting up or slangin’ on the block,” he says, “but life is real.” When I asked him at what point he realised the damage he was causing he paused for a second.“After I went to jail.”On June 12, 2010, Ramon Scott Omari was arrested on charges of felony criminal mischief and possession of a controlled substance (alleged to be liquid Cocaine in a large water bottle). Reports say that he smashed the cell phone of a 22-year-old woman – thought to be his girlfriend – and then continued to rip an apartment door off its hinges. “I was thinking, ‘If I’m going to be going to jail, then I’m not gonna do this shit anymore.’ And I did stop for about a week and a half but then I couldn’t take it anymore and went back to it,” he says, adopting a child-like voice to try to mask the incidents seriousness. “I have a whole new found respect for T.I. and Lil’ Wayne. I only spent 15 hours in there! I was scared straight, going through the shakes, having no food, being held captive. It didn’t matter who I was in the world.” The room went silent for a minute as Omari lit up yet another Swisher. The silence is crushed by Omari’s manager who swiftly walks into the room and informs Ramon that he needs to leave to go to the photo shoot. Omari jumps up and heads to the car. We jump into Omari’s brand new 2011 White Lamborghini Murcielago and he immediately opens the glove compartment and pulls out a CD which reads ‘Not That Bad.’ He puts it in the CD player and then speeds off towards the site of the photo shoot. “It’s not quite finished yet but I’m hoping it’ll be on the new album,” he says sounding excited. It might sound crazy that someone who just released an album two weeks ago is already planning and working on his debut album but Omari doesn’t waste any time. “I think it’s just ‘cause of my personality. I don’t like sitting around on my arse for extended periods of time and I love being in the studio.“‘Not That Bad’ sounds vaguely similar to the songs on Revelations: Part I but with a less spacey feel. It sounds like something you could potentially hear pounding in clubs around the world within the next year. The chorus is simple: “I’m not that bad at all/When you think of the world/It’s not that bad at all.”With all Omari’s imperfections, he has to think things are not that bad. But Omari is definitely prepared for whatever the future holds. “As long as I’ve got my weed and my lightsaber. I can take on anything.”Edited by user 24 August 2011 20:32:26(UTC)
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