Ratking's 'So It Goes' | 10 Years Later
Personal reflections on my favorite New York City rap group along with an oral history of the insane release party for its now 10-year-old debut studio album.
It has been one decade since Ratking dropped its only studio album So It Goes and it still feels like the longest loosie I’ve ever smoked in my life. That’s because discovering Ratking felt like knowing that one cutty deli on the Upper West Side that would sell Newports to 16-year-olds after they spent (yet another) school night drinking beers racked from a local Gristedes supermarket.
If you knew, you knew. And during a moment in the early-2010s, when New York rappers were looking towards Houston, Chicago, and the #GoldenEra for a sound that would take over the five boroughs, Ratking surreptitiously slid a New York hip-hop record into our hands that felt untaxed by any archaic laws or newly-hatched regulations on what New York hip-hop was supposed to sound like. And inhaling it paired perfectly with the natural buzz that came with being a teenager in New York during the early-2010s—a most intoxicating substance in itself.
Maybe I’ve always felt this way about So It Goes because it arrived right when I was finishing high school. Wiki’s opening bars on “*” felt as if they were directly addressing me and so many other lost teenagers in New York. “Graduated, what’s next?/Everybody’s asking/What college you going to?/ What you have planned?” Daunting questions for a 17-year-old that felt as burdensome as those asked by the dickhead NYPD officers stop and frisking Hak and Wik on “Remove Ya” that too many of us were familiar with.
Yet even a decade later, I still find it difficult to ascertain what drew me to Ratking. Again, it felt like a loosie because of how short-lived the group was. Ratking disbanded less than two years after releasing So It Goes and only released one other project after it— a 2015 mixtape titled 700-Fill that personally sparked my own obsession with Steep Tech jackets.
I spent a good deal of winter 2023 trying to sell this North Face TAE hoodie Sporting Life is wearing. The reason is because I was literally bidding on this in an eBay auction the day my pops died. Five minutes after I lost the auction I got the worst phone call ever—it was wild I got a “second chance offer” a couple days later. It low key depresses me to wear this sometimes and I thought I didn’t need to own this after getting an OG teal TAE fleece off Craigslist. When I remembered that Sport wore it while reminiscing on Ratking recently it counter-balanced the sad memory so much that I decided to keep this permanently in my closet.
But maybe I still feel this high because Ratking was more like a spliff rolled with the craziest bud you copped off a dealer you only saw one-time in Washington Square Park. A mysterious weedman who figured out that the dopest weed they could ever sling was by growing a hybrid that blended a producer crafting cyberpunk New York hip-hop beats influenced by everything from U.K. garage to reggae; a deft Upper West Side rapper who channeled the spirit of Cam’ron while slamming mics into his forehead like NYHC groups of the city’s past; and a pensive rapper from Harlem whose spoken word-esque bars could have easily floored the entire audience of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe.
But really, I think why So It Goes resonated with so many young New Yorkers is because the album felt like Larry Clark’s Kids engineered in a different timeline and universe. Instead of Clark, we had Ratking’s producer Sporting Life wielding a SP-555 sampler, SP-DS-X drum machine, and a single drumstick in lieu of a camera. Rather than Harmony Korine on the script, Hak and Wik took the pen and wrote out a soliloquy that perfectly captured what coming of age in New York City felt like during the early-2010s. While Tyler, The Creator was the XL Recordings signee who captured the attention of angsty teenagers nationwide, Ratking was XL’s East Coast equivalent for a much more niche audience built solely by rowdy New York kids.
While I could point out every specific bar on So It Goes that personally resonates with me, I’m not going to Rap Genius it. What I will say is that So It Goes reminds me of every 16-year-old kid who got bagged as an adult and spent a night in the Tombs for doing absolutely nothing except for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It reminds me of those free cribs rich kids put together to climb up Manhattan’s social ladder before realizing their parent’s room got juxxed by that one grimy fool they didn’t even invite to the party. The bars resonate with anyone who grew up seeing their mans cuffed and thrown into the back of a paddy-wagon for smoking a dub even when hiding in the cutty-est section of a public park. An anthem for all those skaters who mourned the loss of that Semen Sperms/IRAK wall ramp at 12th & A in the Lower East Side. A soundtrack for all those graffiti writers who became invigorated after seeing LEWY BTM bomb the base of the Brooklyn Bridge or ingrained every CASH 4/SMELLS 907 roller they saw into the deepest recesses of their mind. Runway music for anyone who ever rode the train and admired the flyness of a random New Yorker stepping out in a Pelle Pelle, Merm or North Face shell when it was 20 degrees outside.
Unfortunately every year that I catch myself reminiscing on Ratking, I feel another down goose feather inside a weathered 700-Fill Nuptse jacket prick my skin through a vintage Polo sweater that feels tighter to wear every year. Not even the coldest Igloo in Brownsville could freeze a New Yorker from aging out and becoming yet another old head who waxes poetic on their golden era of hip-hop.
But when I find myself running back So It Goes to reminisce on these teenage memories of growing up in New York that continue slipping from my mind every passing day, one memory worth sharing in light of its 10-year anniversary is the album’s release party at an art gallery named Babycastles. This show wasn’t just what I personally deem to be one of the best concerts I’ve ever attended in my life, but a moment that makes me naturally spit one of the greatest New York City maxims ever: “You wasn’t there…”
But instead of being another New York old head who holds onto these moments in New York history like a pair of deadstock Nikes crumbling inside a shoe box, let’s take a second to put those shits on again and explain what made it so special.
So here’s an honest attempt at recreating a very special night for myself, and many other New Yorkers, that occurred on April 8, 2014 on the second-floor of an art gallery on West 14th Street.