Rikrok

Rik Rok was born in London on 17 June 1976. His parents migrated from Jamaica to England in the late-1950s in search of greater economic opportunities. Regarding his Jamaican influences during childhood, Rik Rok noted "[when I was growing up it was pretty much Jamaican people who came over... My father was a big reggae fan, especially of Gregory Isaacs, John Holt and Dennis Brown. He had a big record collection and on Sundays he would play music all day at home".

Rik Rok was eleven years old when he returned to Jamaica with his family. While attending Manchester High School in Mandeville, Jamaica, he discovered his singing talent and soon realized he had a flair for songwriting. "One day I was listening to Babyface's Tender Lover album and I remember thinking, I could probably be a songwriter", Rik Rok says. "So I wrote a song, put it down, came back to it and tried it again. Then I started writing more and more songs. I wasn’t really good at it first; some of them were really corny, really stupid. But it was just a hobby and I never thought anything because it seemed like a completely unreachable dream being in the music business".

After completing high school, Rik Rok enrolled in Jamaica's University of the West Indies, (UWI). In 1995, he became a backing singer for Patra. When that tour ended, he returned to UWI to complete his education. After a brief stint performing with the Jamaican R&B/reggae vocal quartet Lust, Rik Rok was offered a songwriting deal by Shaggy’s manager, Robert Livingston. He would write songs and create rhythms on his home computer, then send the demos to Livingston in New York.

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