Ratking Rapper Wiki Channels New York On Debut Album
On a humid July night , the Nuyorican Poets Caf é reeked of must and marijuana. An age-old music venue tucked away on a tree-lined street in New York’s Alphabet City, the small space was packed tightly with twentysomethings dressed in baggy pants and skate T-shirts, fanny packs slung across their torsos. They were gathered to see the night’s main act, Wiki, the rapper best known as one-third of the hip- hop crew Ratking . When Wiki emerged, all five feet seven of him, the crowd exploded. “Let’s get it,” he said, his grin exposing a wide gap on the top row of his teeth — the result of an unfortunate punch to the face that has become something of a trademark for the 23-year-old. And then he started rhyming: “ I like Sunday dinner lounging/Kids in the crib clowning/City park kids running through the fountains, man/I like the mountain.” Everything about Wiki is straight New York. Born Patrick Morales , he’s a half-Irish, half–Puerto Rican self-described mutt from the city’s Upper West Si...