THE PROPER REPLACEMENT: RJ Payne

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA | RJ PAYNE

INTERVIEW TERRELL “REALIFE” BLACK

Philadelphia lyricist talks working with industry heavyweights and new album “The Guttr” with Havoc (Mobb Deep) and Ras Kass.

You can’t help but root for the underdog when they have the lyrical ability, work ethic and consistency of RJ Payne. He’s more than proven that he can go bar for bar with some of Hip Hops veteran MCs, such as Canibus, Lloyd Banks, Method Man, Redman, Ras Kass, Ice T and Erick Sermon, to name a few. On the other hand, he’ll jump on a track with Gorilla Nems, David Bars or Flee Lord to rep for his fellow independent Hip Hop artists. Lets be honest, for those of us who miss the lyricism that Hip Hops been lacking, RJ Payne is undoubtably the proper replacement. I recently sat down with RJ Payne to discuss who’s left on his bucket list of MCs to collab with, recently working with Lloyd Banks, his upcoming EP “My Life Iz A Movie 2” produced by PA Dre and narrated by DJ Jazzy Jeff dropping May 2023 and his upcoming album with Ras Kass and Havoc of Mobb Deep dropping June 2023.

VALIDATED: So how did you get your start, like were you rapping in middle school or high school  in the lunchroom? 

RJ PAYNE: Yes, actually just battling, it all started from House Party. I watched House Party, I had seen them battle and that was it. That moment that they battled, I said, “Yo, I don't know what hip hop is. I don't care, but I want to do that,” and it started with me going to school with the corniest raps you can imagine. Going against people that could rap and I would get murdered, I would lose daily. Then I moved to New York, it was the same thing. So I was just doing a lot of moving from Philly to New York and I was battling and losing everywhere, and one thing it gave me was just the hunger to keep battling man. And I just figured it out just like that by losing.

VALIDATED: I know you were going by Reign Man before eventually switching to RJ Payne, but the “Paayyynnnneeeee” tag that you use when you rhyme, where did that come from?

RJ PAYNE: I always knew that the greatest rappers had some type, whatever it is, I always knew every rapper has something that's their thing. So even when I was Reign Man, like I might, I think the word I used to say was…, I forget, but whatever it was I knew this was the Reign Man thing. So when I became RJ Payne, which is my real name, I was just like, what would be doper than saying my name? It just happened to go. It sounds like it's made up, but literally, that was it. I was like, what could my tag be? And one day while writing a rhyme, it was a space, and I was like, either I could say okay, you know what I mean? Whatever, or I could say Payne, and it just stuck.

VALIDATED: That's dope because it definitely draws attention. So, I want to go back for a minute. The “If Cocaine Could Talk” EP, you got that “Ronald Reagan Theory” record, and it's like, to me it's verbal abuse on a beat. What was your mindset while you were writing that record?

RJ PAYNE: That whole series from 1 to volume 5, I put those out in one year and that's when my name was starting to first heat up as RJ Payne. And my only goal was to put out a project every month because I figured out how to monetize. Shout out Christie, somebody that's on my team, she does my media. And she just stepped to me one day like, “Listen, you can get paid right there.” And as soon as I started doing that, I got addicted and I said, man, I'm going to put out a project every month. I'm able to pay my little cell phone and bills in the house. And that's how it initially started. This was a way for me to just get my best bars off and make money from it soon as I drop it. So that's how that was born, no special backstory, just hunger man. And I knew people were listening and I knew I was going to make money most importantly.

VALIDATED: Being the type of MC that you are, at this point I’m sure you have a bucket list, with MCs that you want to work with, whether they're independent or OGs or whatever. How many people do you have left on that list at this point? Because I see Ice Tea, Ransom, the list just goes on and on.

RJ PAYNE: I'm going to be honest. It's a lot that's done that I cannot even say yet. So I would just say it's a few, I can't just name them off-hand, but it's a lot. I'm a hip-hop fan so I’m a fan of dudes that I think are just nice. They don't really got to be a big name; they don't got to be a legend. If I think you are nice, I want to work with you just so I can see who can push their pen harder. But off the top I would say, I got a few GOAT worthy appearances already done that I can't say just yet. And it was some joints that I really wanted to make happen. They happened and you'll be seeing them in the next coming weeks.

VALIDATED: That's dope. So, I know you recently dropped the joint with Lloyd Banks. How did that collaboration come about?

RJ PAYNE: Shout out to Banks. You know what's crazy? This is one of the things that let me know, I guess, that I was making a name for myself. I was on Twitter randomly, a fan was like, “Yo! You should work with Lloyd Banks.” And I just randomly was like, @LloydBanks, “Yo, let's work.” And he tweeted me back, like, “Yes, let's get it.” We had no relationship, nothing. And it was just like damn, that's Banks. I'm pretty sure everybody can't just get a verse just like that off of a tweet and a week later I got the verse, man. Just like that.

VALIDATED: That says a lot about your pin game too.

RJ PAYNE: Yes, that's when I was like, ok. I work with a lot of dope artists, Banks being who he is, and all the things he was able to do, platinum records, and all of that. I know he's not just giving free verses to any rapper, so I definitely look to that as, all right, my name must be really moving.

VALIDATED: So, who else is there left on your bucket list that you haven't worked with yet,  let's say three people?

RJ PAYNE: I would say Eminem still. I definitely want to get a record with Eminem. Of course Jay-Z, who don't want a Jay-Z verse because I want to make Jay rap-rap, not the comfortable rap. I want to make Hov rap-rap. Let me see, and I would probably say, NAS. It's a lot more people than I can say, but I'll say those guys because they're the GOATS and I feel like at this point like you said, I rap with almost everybody, so I want to put my pen up against the GOATS. It's not even about win or lose, I just want to seek, and I aim.

VALIDATED: I know you get the Big L comparison a lot, but with the artists that have passed, unfortunately, I'm assuming Big L would definitely be one of the artists you'd want to work with?

RJ PAYNE: Absolutely! It's a shame that he passed away. And if I could just bring three back maybe from that I knew I wanted to work with, it would definitely be Big L, definitely Sean Price and Big Pun. Those three, like real importance.

VALIDATED: Out of the artists out right now, whether independent or major, who actually motivates you as an artist?

RJ PAYNE: Whoever I see the people talking about. I'm going to be honest, it's not really a specific person. It starts with tweets, it starts with Instagram, and just starts with Facebook. I go off of the conversations that I see people having. So whoever, I see people genuinely, like he's the nicest or they the nicest, that's who I want to rap with. That's why you see me work with everybody from Ransom to Ice Tea to the Bun-B. I want to work with the best. So it's not even a name thing, I just want to know who's nice and putting in work.

VALIDATED: And that stems from the battle rapper in you, right?

RJ PAYNE: It does. And to be honest, I only battle rapped to do what I'm doing now. A lot of MCs, most people don't know we only had to battle rap because it wasn't really easy to get in the industry. That was your guaranteed way to at least get seen. So I think I still got that competition from battle rap, whereas, know what, anytime I rap, I am going to push your pin.

VALIDATED: And that's dope, because nowadays a lot of the hunger, you don't see that from artists.

RJ PAYNE: Right.

VALIDATED: So, I know you also got the new single that you just dropped “Thanos”. What can you tell us about that?

RJ PAYNE: I remember just going down my timeline and I was seeing random names and I was just like, all right, well let me just make something that I feel like none of them couldn't hang with. And it wasn't nobody specific, it was to everybody. Whoever I felt, I'm seeing your name too much from my timeline. I said, let me write something that I don't care who you put in front of, they going to have a hard time out doing it, and that's all that was. My shot at just letting everybody know I'm still outside.

VALIDATED: What’s been the response so far to not only the record with Lloyd Banks that you have, but also the “Thanos” single?

RJ PAYNE: Oh, it's been crazy. So many people hit me up about the record, but not just regular people. You're talking about the legends most importantly, not most importantly, but the most shocking. I got a random DM from Twista. Twista was like, “Yo, that's one of the illest songs that I've heard in years. You and Banks keep it up, we got to work on songs, something like that. That blew my mind that these types of people were listening. So everybody from Twista to anybody you can think of, it's too many offhand, but it's been a lot of love for both of them joints. But more than anything those joints, I think that's more of a regular rap fan favorite because I've been getting a lot of, “Yo, we need more of that!”

VALIDATED: So to backtrack a little bit, I believe you started off your second coming if we will…  You would go to lunch and just rap in the car. Was that your game plan? Did you see any of this coming?

RJ PAYNE: No. I'm going to be honest bro, I only was rapping on my break to still feel like I was a part of hip hop, like the job that I was at in the place that I was living in Alabama, it was so far removed from Philly and New York and just hip hop in general that it was, all right, all I want to do, is do anything that still makes me feel like I'm a part of this. So being able to just get busy on a beat in front of the camera, that just kind of gave me that old school rap DVD energy and that's all I expected; was just to get a few likes. I had no clue that I would be here at this point.

VALIDATED: And it seems like every year it is like, you do some “Thanos” basically every year. So I know we were talking…

RJ PAYNE: No, I think that that's only because I waited so long to get my shot and get heard. So now that I know I'm getting heard and getting ears, it's like I got to keep reminding myself. “Oh yes, they don't know that you can do that. Oh, by the way, they don't know you could do that, pull this out your bag of tricks.” So that's pretty much what I'm going to let everybody see from now on, all of the stuff that I never got a chance to show the world.

VALIDATED: So I know we were talking earlier before the interview about how some of the bars that you drop are just crazy. Like I said before my favorite one probably is the “God forgive me, but I think I could have sparred with Biggie”. When you write some of these lines, I know you must shock yourself occasionally.

RJ PAYNE: Yes. I'm not going to lie; I think that'd be the goal though. I think at this point in order for me to write one bar down, it has to make me feel like, maybe you shouldn't have said that, maybe you going a little too far. If it still gives me that feeling, that's when I know that's it. Soon as I wrote the “God forgive me, but I think I could have sparred with…”, as soon as I wrote that I was like, all right some people not going to like it, but I was like, if I back this up the right way, he is going to be like, I don't know, maybe he might could have, it's not for everybody, but I try to always push the line.

VALIDATED: But I feel like if you are a true hip-hop fan, to me it depends on who its coming from. So in this instance, like I told you, I told my boy, I'm like, “Bro, you can't knock that line. Have you heard this dude? Do you listen to what he says? Do you know how ill his pen game is? Do you hear what I'm hearing?” Like I get it.

RJ PAYNE: But thank you.

VALIDATED: No, thank you. So how do you decide on which artists to work with, be it indie or major? Meaning with you being so bar heavy and regardless of who I’ve heard you rhyme with, whether I feel like as a fan that they’re up to par lyrically or not, because you don’t dumb your flow down. You’ll still go in and lyrically destroy everything. 

RJ PAYNE: Right. I think there's no rhyme or reason, it's just whoever I see is nice. I could go down my timeline and if I see a random rapper and I think he's like crazy dope, because that be the thing, they can rap alright, they dope, but are they crazy dope? It's certain rappers that when they rap you like, yo crazy! And if I see an inkling of that, I want to work with you. A lot of times rappers like, “Yo, listen to this.” or “I want to work with you.” I'll be like, if you want to work with me, it's probably going to be business for me to want to work with you, you got to actually make me want to write my rhymes. And it's not often that somebody makes me want to write a rhyme. So, if I get that feeling, I want to work.

VALIDATED: So what was a line that you wrote yourself that you were kind of like, wait a minute, did I just say that?

RJ PAYNE: I think the last one that I wrote that was like that, it might have been the “Thanos” joint. It might have been one of them bars on there. I think that whatever I was going through at that moment, that zone on that song, that's I think some of my illest writing in a while. I can't give you one bar. That whole joint summarizes my illest writing as of lately.

VALIDATED: Do you do shows currently?

RJ PAYNE: Yes. I have an interesting theory about shows. I talked to a lot of people like I say from the Ice T’s to anybody you can think of. And one thing I always hear, and I've been noticing is that shows are dope. I don't have a problem with performing, but one thing I learned is over the years, if you look at the record deals that a lot of the artists have to sign, they have not been good. So this is why a lot of these guys have to tour all year and they're only getting a small amount of money, and it has to come from the shows. Nowadays, if you do your business, you're getting a lot of money. I'm not a millionaire by any means, but I don't have to go perform, I don't have to go do anything but keep writing my rhymes and look at my PayPal and my CashApp and the money is there. So I don't have to do shows to be seen. So it's like now when I go perform, it's because I want to, it's because it makes sense.

I think I got a lot of that from Black Thought. He always told me, he said, “Yo, you don't see me everywhere.” He said, but when you see him it matters. And I was just like damn, I'm going to adopt that, and I've been the same way. You won't see me doing a bunch of radio shows, a bunch of radio freestyles, none of that. But when you see me it's going to be crazy.

VALIDATED: That makes sense. You had a couple of joints like, you said this one bar saying, “rapping better than half this era...” I can't even argue with that. But it's the fact that you said it and I was like, “Yo, he's right.”

RJ PAYNE: And those be the bars, fact! I know somebody's going to be like, no you don't rap better than such and such. I just want to get the conversation started and then I want you to have to go back and listen to me, listen to such and such and, really decide.

VALIDATED: And make that decision.

RJ PAYNE: Right.

VALIDATED: You mentioned you had another one, and I'm just paraphrasing, but you were like, “who wanna spar with the rap Deebo, it’s heavy metal, hard as the armor on Magneto…” Bro, I think I almost crashed into the back of somebody when I was listening to that in the car.

RJ PAYNE: That was a shocker for me. When I wrote that line, that's one of them joints, I was like, this is hard. I always write a rhyme and I'm like, this is dope. That was one of them moments. I was like, oh yes, I'm in that zone at this moment. I got to keep going.

VALIDATED: So with that being said, have ever written a bar and the bar is too hard? And you’re like, “Yo, I can't say that.”

RJ PAYNE: Yes, once in a while. That definitely happens. Sometimes I'll say something, and you know what happens sometimes when I'm doing features. I might say something, and it might be actually the other artists up, but based upon who's hearing it, I know it's a chance they're going to hear it and be like, he's dissing him on the song that they're on. So I'm always conscious of, I might be trying to show somebody love. It goes back to LL Cool J and Canibus, you remember Canibus was trying to show LL love with the mic on his arm. LL wasn't trying to hear it. And that started the war.

VALIDATED: Yes, and that was crazy. I feel like a lot of the kids growing up in this era and the way hip-hop is portrayed now in the industry or mainstream at least, it's completely different. Not knocking anybody. Whatever they do is what they do. But for me, the 80s, 90s and early 00s, that was just different.

RJ PAYNE: It was special, we don't have that energy no more. You see glimpses of it. But yes, we don't have that no more.

VALIDATED: Independently, you definitely see glimpses of it. You see glimpses of it mainstream too. But for me, like J Cole,  Kendrick Lamar…

RJ PAYNE: Kendrick, yes.

VALIDATED: People say Drake, I can't. To me Drake is a pop artist. I'm not taking nothing away from his song making ability. He makes songs, whatever.

RJ PAYNE: You know, it's crazy for him because he can rap-rap. I've heard him bar up sometime and I'm like, I didn't know he could do that. But I think for him, his fan base that loves him the most and buys his records the most, they don't appreciate what me and you love. So I think when he does it, when he bars up, they're like, yes that's cool. But turn on “Hotline Bling”, give us what we want, that rap stuff is cool over there.

And one thing I figured out myself is, sometimes as an artist, you have no control over what your fans are going to like. You could plan to save the world and be the next Common Sense and positive rap and all of that, but your fans might hear you do one specific freestyle and decide, no this is what we like from you, and that's just what it is. And I think that's what happened to Drake. I think he was able to do so much. When he did the pop stuff, I think they were like, oh no this is it. We don’t care about anything, stay right here.

With the melody rappers, I think people don't know it's not easy to do the melodies like that, either you are blessed with that pocket to know a dope melody, or you don't, like everybody can't do that. And I know that from trying, I see and I do what they do, and man it’s not as easy.

VALIDATED: No, I get that. So you and Pa Dre been going strong for a minute, and I see he's doing other stuff in his own lane too. How did you two end up linking in the beginning?

RJ PAYNE: Online. The craziest part is me and Pa Dre been working together now, probably since 2013, 2014. We got so many records together that I can't tell you and we've never met each other in person. Our relationship has been strictly online. He moved to California, I was down south, so we just been working this way. Literally, he would just be like, “Yo, I think you the dopest MC I've ever heard, let me give you beats.” And I was just like I appreciate it. But I wasn't into rapping at that moment, I was down south being a regular person. He convinced me to like, “Yo go in the booth, I'll help you, whatever it takes, I want you to get back to rap.” Make a long story short. I started rapping on his beats and it almost was like it was supposed to be.

Like literally it was like I was supposed to rap on his beats and our relationship has just been the easiest. It's been easier than some people that I’ve known my whole life. Like, you know, the type of connections that you can't make that up!

VALIDATED: Sometimes that's how it's supposed to be, but do you see you two collaborating again in the near future?

RJ PAYNE: Oh, it's already on the way. Me and Twista are already on the way. I can definitely say that. And there are so many records that are on the way, but that's at the top of the list. Do you know what's funny? He actually left a comment on Instagram. He said because I think AllHipHop.com had put out an article and they was saying all rappers scared of RJ Payne, Twista put under like, “Yo yes, they are scared. Like they got me doing a feature for him right now, I'm taking my time before I turn that verse in.

VALIDATED: That's dope.

RJ PAYNE: Especially to be able to do it at that speed. So for him to say he's worried about what I will say after he raps, it means everything.

VALIDATED: So I know you dropped a few singles, right? But when do we get a new project?

RJ PAYNE: Well, May me and PA are dropping. I have a project that I dropped last year that was really successful for me. It was called “My Life Iz A Movie.” It's pretty much storytelling, it's pretty much my adventures. And I hear that so much! I never expected people to take to that project like that. But we're doing part 2 and its narrated by the legendary DJ Jazzy Jeff. It's going to be an all-Philly joint. It's going to be super dope and you could definitely expect that in May.

VALIDATED: Any artists featured on the project? 

RJ PAYNE: The #MyLifeIzAMovie is a series that will never have a rap feature. I want to be able to carry this series completely alone.

VALIDATED: You don't ever get writer's block?

RJ PAYNE: Yes, I get it, but what I do is I figured out systems to write music. So what I do is, this year I'm really implementing it. I'm dropping music every other week. But what I did was I'll write a certain amount of music or records and let's say I write five records, let's say I decided I'm going to drop them biweekly. That means I'm pretty much straight for a while, so now I'll start doing features. So I literally have it to where I have music that's already written that's not coming out for another month or two. So it's easy for me to have writer's block and that not affect or show. But yes, I get writer's block. I get it a lot. But like I said, if I think an artist writes when they feel like it, if you write enough, then when you get writers block, it won't matter.

VALIDATED: And also off your “My Life Iz A Movie” EP, my favorite record is “Long Island Expressway”, but which record would you say is the fans’ favorite off of that EP?

RJ PAYNE: What I get a lot of is the “Little Italy”record, people say it just sounds like a movie. And I think that's my lane, the punchlines is my lane, but I think the storytelling thing is going to be something that keeps me around for a long time.

VALIDATED: The concept of that EP though, how did you come up with that?

RJ PAYNE: You know what, just trying to do something different. I edit all of my Instagram videos. So if you follow my Instagram, anything that you see me put up, whether it's a freestyle, whether it's something funny after I freestyle, I edit everything. So one day while I was editing, I was just like, what if I was able to write a rhyme around the video that I edited? Was just like, all right, let me try it. And literally doing that led me to damn, I wonder what other stories I could tell. So I was just like, all right, well let me go through my mental rolodex and see the best stories that I can tell that actually happened while I was just running back and forth from Philly to New York, and that was it. And I didn't have no clue that people would be so receptive to it, everybody's so used to the punchlines. So when people was like, “Yo, this is the best album you ever dropped.” I was confused. Like, all right, cool. I got more of that too.

VALIDATED: The album “The Guttr” with you, Havoc and Ras Kass dropping in June, how did the collaboration come together and what can you tell us about the project?

RJ PAYNE: Well we had all been individually planning to work together eventually but Ras Kass spearheaded the idea for us to become a group. As far as the album, we recorded it in a couple of months but the pandemic slowed us up for a year or more. It’s fully produced by Havoc and one of the features is Raekwon. And we have the 1st single on the way called #RollCall featuring me, Ras Kass, Method Man, Lil Fame from M.O.P and Sway from Sway In The Morning.

VALIDATED: So, lets say you’ve got to pick three bar heavy MCs to battle to the death, who would they be, dead or alive, past or present? 

RJ PAYNE: That's hard. I would say it would be the MCs that shaped me as a young rapper. I would throw “Muddy Waters” Redman in there. I got to say Eminem because people consider him to be the best, and maybe Black Thought. I want the people that everybody is scared to rap with. All of those guys are guys that literally used to make me be like, this isn’t good. I go to do better.

VALIDATED: Okay, and who do you think is coming out victorious?

RJ PAYNE: I think the hungriest one. I think all of them guys are amazing. They will make me push my pin, but I think that's the only thing that I might have on all of them is that I still got that itch to prove that I'm the best. At this point, I'm pretty sure Eminem don't care who you think is the best rapper. You know what I'm saying? I'm pretty sure none of them are worried about it. But for me, for little old me, that still means a lot.

VALIDATED: You and Eminem’s record would be crazy. Not taking anything away from Redman or Black Thought, but I'm looking at the way we know Eminem is just different. That record would be crazy bar heavy.

RJ PAYNE: Right, I'm pushing for it, trust me.

VALIDATED: And people can say what they want to say. A lot of people say “He's white, that's not rap.” But we are talking bars, period. 

RJ PAYNE: I hear people say stuff like, “I don't relate to what Eminem raps about.” It's like, yo, I don't ride around listening to Eminem all day. But you talking about rap skills, I don't know too many people that rap better than him. I don't care what he is rapping about.

VALIDATED: To me, he's the only person I ever heard out rap Jay-Z on his own song.

RJ PAYNE: You know what? I think as a rapper, the only way that I can put that into words for people, I think they both did two different things better than the other. I think Jay-Z had the coolest demeanor and I think Eminem was just hungry.

VALIDATED: I believe when we spoke before you mentioned you had a label and you had artists as well.

RJ PAYNE: Yes, I tried to start the label and get artists. But one thing I figured out is if I ever decide to do that again, you have to do business with people that are hungry. Sometimes as an artist, we want to see people get on. That's the situation I ran into. I have seen two cats that I knew how talented they could be, but they just, that wasn't what their hunger was at that moment. They were just dope, and they were cool with being dope. We all know people that are super dope, whether basketball, football, whatever, but they just don't pursue their talent to it’s full potential.

VALIDATED: No, that's true. And one of my mentors told me way back before I even started this that there's always going to be somebody hungrier than you. If you’re going to make this work, you’re going to have to make this work, period. And to me that was the most valuable piece of advice I've ever received. If you’re going to make this work, you’re going to have to make this work. Which means you can't take a “L”, you take a “L”, you got to figure out how to make that a “W”.

RJ PAYNE: Right, I agree.

VALIDATED: Any last words?

RJ PAYNE: A lot of new music on the way, every other week I'm driving something new. Like I said, “My Life Iz A Movie 2” produced by PA Dre and narrated by DJ Jazzy Jeff dropping in May. I'm now involved with the NFL, they played me and Method Man's record “Butterfly Effect” during the Super Bowl.

So that's what I'm going for in the future, man. Look to see me involved with movie soundtracks, NFL, NBA, or anything like that. I'm just trying to do more than just keep showing you all I'm bar heavy. I'm trying to get involved with something bigger than that.

Oh yeah, that's what I forgot to mention, meeting my homie Tyrese, we got something cooking. That's right, I said the legendary Tyrese from Transformers, Baby Boy, and all of that. So just stay tuned and I got some big records on the way and doing a lot more than just giving you all punch lines and all of that. I'm about to show the world I can do a lot more. Stay tuned!

VALIDATED: So how can people support you?

RJ PAYNE: Oh man. You can buy directly from me, or you can just stream everything. I'm on all platforms and all social media is @IAmRJPayne. And for the people that don't like to stream, and you just want to get the music directly, IAmRJPayneMusic.com and that's where all my music is available.