Rikah

Born Merika Hunter, “Rikah” is a Canadian-American singer-songwriter whose original music embraces elements of jazz, erotica, reggae, opera, neo-soul, funk, EDM, and pop/rock. Raised by a touring Rock & Roll family, Rikah was on the road in her mom’s tour bus by the age of two and began performing with her family’s band by age five.

By the time she was sixteen, Rikah had gained professional experience doing both voiceovers and commercials for film and television, sang the morning Sadhana at her local Ashram, and performed in both an A Cappella jazz group and a jazz Big Band.   Also, as a teenager in Toronto’s rave scene, she found her passion vocalizing over D’n’B and house music, before moving to Hawaii a few years later to raise her daughter.

Rikah resurfaced in 2002 to tour Asia with a rock band, then moved to Las Vegas, where she had a brief vocal residency at Club Light (Bellagio Hotel).  She began working with producer Mark Matson (of Sipping Soma, Emoticon and Kristine W.) and was soon recording and remixing under the guidance of San Francisco’s CAPP Records crew.  There, she was introduced to Spanish producer Oscar Salguero and they co-wrote “Everything Is Changing”, which climbed to #1 on the iTunes dance charts under the compilation “50 Techno Electro Tunes” in 2008, and made the Billboard breakout chart.  In 2008, Rikah’s original track “Out of Time” made it to the top 20 on Billboards, # 2 on the Billboard Breakouts and #30 in DJ Times.  Another track, “Believe” (co-written with Peter Agyagos), was also featured in a couple episodes of “Keeping Up With The Kardasians” (late 2014 and early 2015). 

After traveling to India and England to make music, Rikah was accepted to study Opera at Scuola Musicale di Milano (Italy) however she declined due to Visa issues and returned to live in Hawaii. 

Long awaited, Rikah’s first full-length album “Unrequited Too” was released in Novemeber, 2015.  Remixed by Matson, this album is an electronic mating of her live band gone looped, with tracks ranging from ambient, acid jazz, breakbeat, down-tempo, dub and house.

Additional projects scheduled for 2016 are “Juicy Jazz” (an album of jazz standards gone EDM), singles “Beep Beep” and “The Diva Dance”, as well as another collaborative outlet (Dreams in Progress) with producer Matson titled “Operotica”, a combination of ambient beats with operatic fills and one-night stanzas of erotica poetry.