Ringolero

Ringolero (born Jon Jasher in 1978) is a British Hip hop, Dancehall & Drum & Bass artist.

Biography

Ringolero was born in South London UK and grew up on Myatts Field Estate, Brixton.

The eldest born to a Rastafarian Father and Christian Mother, both of African/Caribbean descent. Ringo (as he was known then) was influenced by music from a very early age. Music such as Reggae, Roots & Culture, Dub, Studio One, Lovers Rock, Revival and Soul are all genres of music that were Ringo grew up listening to. In the late eighties Ringo was introduced to Hip Hop music by Big Daddy Kane, with a cassette tape given to him by a friend of the album Long Live the Kane. This was the beginning of Ringo’s love affair with Hip Hop music. He wrote lyrics and started modeling himself on his idol, calling himself ‘Young Kane’. Ringo had always listened to Dancehall music and Dancehall Deejays such as Ninjaman (his favourite), Cutty Ranks, Lieutenant Stitchie and Capleton to name a few, had a big impact on him. After joining/forming sound systems such as Mystic Love and Sting-Ray in the early 90’s, as a ‘mic-man’; Ringo began demonstrating the skills he had learnt from these artists.

Names

In 1989 whilst at John Archer School, Ringo was named by his friends. This was after the character Ringo Smith in the Jamaican film ‘Smile Orange’ (given as he shared some of the characters looks and mannerisms). This name stuck and is still used today by some of Ringo’s close friends and those who try to abbreviate his full stage name. Over the years most of Ringo’s close friends started calling him, Ringolero. This was an extension to the original name and seen as an evolution of the original Ringo into what he is today. Another reason is that a lot of other people started calling themselves Ringo. So in an effort to stay original and be the only artist with a particular name, Ringo decided to take on the full name of Ringolero.

Career

Early career

Living in London and being exposed to so many different music genres Ringo started to show interest in Drum & Bass in about 1993. Before long Ringo was emceeing with friends DJ Publo and Flego Barker in Publo’s bedroom. Then he moved onto radio stations such as Breeze FM (96.3fm)as part of the Firing Squad, Fundamental FM and finally Rude FM (88.2fm) with a prime-time solo slot. Ringo stayed in the Drum & Bass arena for about 9 years (semi-professionally), making money doing individual features and stage performances at venues such as The Coliseum and Linfords Film Studio, his last radio performance was in January 2001 on Rude FM, with DJ Ricky Redeye. During the years he has focused on Drum and Bass, Ringo had always listened to Hip Hop and Reggae/Dancehall. After his Drum and Bass phase, he decided to go back to concentrating on Hip Hop and began writing material and forming concepts.

Career Route

Ringolero's first Hip Hop release was a single called 'Master Minds of Deception', with a group called Amen Voyager led by John Bizz. Ringolero, not feeling the direction the group was taking jumped ship and continued writing as a solo MC. He released an 8 track experimental mixdisc with Synista Hustla called Hammer Verse of Horrors. In early 2005 Ringolero released a dancehall single called ‘Dem fi get’, which was an unapologetic song where he aired his views on worldly issues. Later in 2005 he teamed up with long time collaborator Scamer (whom he met on the drum and bass scene in the early nineties), and formed The RiSc. As The RiSc they released After the Massacre, a diss-disc directed at 50 cent. This well received mix-tape, proved to be the blueprint for Ringo to test the waters, in preparation for his solo release and future Risc productions.

Ringolero has shown himself to be a very prolific writer; so it came as no surprise when he released his own solo project the following year. In September 2006 Ringolero released his first solo album, tentatively titled 'HOW TO BE AN EMCEE', released on Ringolero’s ‘Jon Ringo Enterprises’ label. Which contained 23 tracks written by Ringolero and featuring his crew the Doujaman movement. Ringolero achieved some success with this album, high points include receiving a complimentary review and a three-star rating from Hip Hop Connection, (a popular Hip Hop Magazine), also receiving positive reviews from Six Shot magazine, UK Runnings, Hip Hop Kings and interest shown from The Source’s unsigned hype agents. Despite this the actual album sales were disappointing.

tyle

Ringolero writes all his lyrics himself and this is a very important part of his art. “Anyone else is an actor, reading lines and playing a part” he was quoted saying when asked about those who use ghost-writers. (‘Real Rap interview’, June 2006) Ringolero is an artist who seems fascinated with words and language and this can clearly be heard in his music. Far from being a commercial artist, Ringolero’s music falls into the more hardcore category, though there is an intelligence that shines through, whenever he speaks. He uses a complex wordplay in his rhymes and has been described as sounding like he is using too many words for the sentence, yet still being on time. Ringolero is known for using ‘double timed’ rhymes, i.e. rhymes said at twice the normal tempo for the track (probably due to his Drum and Bass background) and ‘N**** what you know’ ( a track where he demonstrated this), is one of his biggest tracks to date.

Affiliations

Over the years Ringolero had a lot of involvement with various groups and individuals whilst trying to make something of himself in the music industry. People such as Scamer, an emcee whom Ringo met on the Drum and Bass circuit in the nineties, Scamer and Ringo collaborated well with each other and years later would come together to form the rap group The RiSc and release the mixtape ‘After the Massacre’. To this day they are still collaborating as The RiSc. Corey Johnson, of Defenders LOS is someone Ringo has always been musically linked to over the years. From the early days when they were both emceeing through headphones in Ringo’s front room on his stepfathers stereo system to more recently collaborating on the track Local Groupies which featured on Ringolero’s album release "How to be an Emcee". Young Shellz, Young Hamz, Snake and Synista Hustler are some of the others who regularly collaborate with Ringolero. Nearly all members of The Doujaman Movement, (Ringolero’s crew) are either brothers or cousins of Ringolero.