New York’s Roga Raph is the voice of a generation that’s ready to fight back against stagnation. Using his gifts as a lyricist and producer, he has crafted a project that questions the status quo and tasks his listeners with pushing themselves to do better. The thing about We’ll See, though, is that it’s as immediately gripping as it is thoughtful. Raph deftly blends some of his catchiest production yet with layers and layers of insights, allowing you to bounce along to the beat or sit and marinate on the deeper message.
This is all part of Raph’s goal with We’ll See. In speaking about the EP, he says he hopes that it will just get listeners thinking about their own lives. “And, perhaps, they’ll readjust if they were heading down the wrong path,” he adds. This sentiment is actually at the heart of one of Raph’s favorite tracks on the project, “dontwannarun.” In addition to being a straight-up banger, the song centers on the idea of realizing you’ve been avoiding the inevitable for too long, and that it’s time to finally confront it.
Elsewhere, Raph embraces that aforementioned bounce even more on the video-game jazz-rap of “LevelUp” and the stutter-stepping soul of “So It Seems” (one of several co-productions with Elijah Fox). The latter track also features some of his most cutting lyrics in the spoken word-like outro: “I was told, I was told, I was heaven sent/ Split us all up into teams, it’s all fun and games/ Til we know what it means/ Things ain’t what they seem.”
We’ll See is available now through all major digital retailers and streaming platforms through Raph’s own label, S.O.O.N.
