Rittz truly defines making a little go a long way.

We can’t all be like Tech N9ne, pulling a wide variety of albums such as Corey Taylor, Eminem, and Excision (all from Special Effects, too!). Though Rittz’s feature catalog is not nearly as extensive, he finds musicians with extreme musical talent, coming together for his latest work, Top of the Line.

Let’s talk about the features on the album. Who did you bring in?

First of all, I had a lot of ideas at the beginning. You always get these ideas of who you’d like to feature and then they don’t work out. Then, you begin scrambling. Not scrambling in a bad way, but just looking at other options.

Of course, I got Tech and Krizz. I got Devin The Dude, which is one of my favorite rappers of all time. Like, I grew up listening to him. A lot of my rhyme patterns, mellow style – a lot of my music is based off his influence. So, having him on my track is fucking crazy.

I also got Mike Posner as always. He hit me up with some dope shit. I got E-40 on that record as well, which is another OG in the game that I’ve been wanting to work with for years. I always try to work with legends in the game, and it happened on this album.

It was also my first time where I felt like I could add an artist from my hometown. Cheeto Gambine is on my album. I was able to look out and he looked out for me, putting a verse on there. I’m excited about that.

We talked about producers a little bit earlier, but which ones did you bring on for this album?

I kept it pretty simple. We’ve got Heartbeatz. We’ve got Seven, who just nailed it. Seven is on a huge majority of the tracks. Best Kept Secret, who is on the track with Mike Posner. Matic Lee, who did “LAF” and “Misery Loves Company”. He’s back on it for a few tracks.

I think for the most part, that’s it. I don’t want to leave anybody out. I’m really happy with it, man. At the end of the day, Heartbeatz and Seven were the backbone of this project.

How important is the album packaging to you?

I think that album packaging is very important. Unfortunately, it’s become less important over the years. I used to love getting an album and hoping there was a picture on every page. This is my first album that I haven’t focused as much on that, because it’s just not as important as it used to be. People don’t see it as much, unfortunately.

People’s attention spans are so short. It’s like, front to back, let’s see who did this track – if they even go that far. You’ve got to appreciate anybody who goes out and buys physical CDs or albums. It used to mean a lot to me, man. I remember when Guns N’ Roses first showed titties in theirs. This time, I stepped away from it a bit.

Why did you choose the album cover that you did?

I wanted the album cover to look retro because of the theme I was going for. Plus, I’ve been standing by a car for two albums now. I could do that all day, I love album covers with cars and shit. I wanted something that was retro and it just showcased me. When you see it, there’s my face – loud and clear. It’s classic.

Shout out to David Graham who painted me. He actually painted me and did some real artwork on it. I wanted it to look cool with a classic feel – something that’s timeless.

• What do you think of Rittz’s new retro style?

Let us know in the comments section below!

CLICK HERE TO PRE-ORDER TOP OF THE LINE