Rich Medina:
A Rich Imagination
By Janeé Bolden


Before I left NYC for wherever I am these days (not sure what city I’ll be in when this goes to press) one of my favorite spots to hit up was APT where Rich Medina is the resident DJ on Wednesdays for the Little Ricky’s Rib Shack party. Like MySpace or Kevin Bacon, or whatever reference point you choose to seize on, Rich and I have been separated by one degree for quite some time. But we finally put an end to that. I got him on the horn just in time to catch him before he headed to Miami where he was scheduled to work four parties for Winter Music Conference… “It’s gonna be surrrious,” he promised. (It was – according to my friends who attended WMC).

Last October (10/4) Rich released his first solo album Connecting the Dots, which pulled together many aspects of the former Cornell basketball player's life.

"The concept for Connecting the Dots came together from years of conversations with different friends of mine. People who I went to school with who I hadn’t seen in 7 years who see me with locks now, deejaying and are trying to connect the dots. People who go to poetry readings that don’t know I’m a DJ. People who go to parties of mine who don’t know I perform. As my first record, I wanted to make a point as a composer, not hog the mic for the whole thing, just tell the story with my vocals and friends that are really interested in working with me and we made some really beautiful things together."

The album is a lush collection of soulful music from many different genres – hip-hop, house, jazz, afro-beat and spoken word; the result of Rich’s collaborations with a group of chosen musicians.

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