A few weeks ago, rapper Riff Raff dropped a new single called ‘Hit Me Up’, featuring Lisa Cimorelli of the band Cimorelli. The six sisters recently released their second full length album, Alive, a collection of inspirational, feel-good songs. Lisa’s collaboration with Riff Raff is her first venture into solo music outside of Cimorelli, and she absolutely nailed it.
The track oozes confidence and swag but is also very laid back and relaxed. Some of Riff Raff’s lyrics are bound to make you giggle, like when he talks about eating too many steaks. The song flows well between Riff Raff’s verses and the chorus that Lisa sings, and it is the perfect song to blast while driving around with your friends. Both Riff Raff and Lisa’s online communities of fans have been loving the single, praising its catchiness and easygoing vibes.
We caught up with Lisa to discuss how she wrote her part in ‘Hit Me Up’, what she enjoyed about working with Riff Raff, and her future plans to explore new musical outlets. Read our full interview with Lisa below.
CelebMix: How did your collaboration with Riff Raff on ‘Hit Me Up’ come about?
Lisa Cimorelli: He messaged me on Twitter saying he wanted to do a song with me! I didn’t think it could work, but he promised to keep it clean and make sure everything was to my liking. He was very respectful of my beliefs and made it easy for me to participate.
When I write to a track I just listen to whatever words are coming into my head and try to make sense of them. “Hit me up, where you wanna go” popped into my head and I immediately thought of me and my friends when we’re driving around on a Friday night having fun just listening to music. Once I had that vibe in mind I built the rest of my chorus around that vision. I just kept thinking about my friends and that feeling of freedom and tried to paint that picture.
He’s so funny. He’s constantly making jokes or talking in funny voices. Also, he was really easygoing about collaborating and let me just do my thing.
When I’m working with my sisters it’s more of a democracy and I have to consider what everyone wants. With Riff it was just me doing whatever I wanted, there was more freedom because there weren’t so many other opinions to consider. Working with my sisters is fun and it makes me better at cooperating in a big group, but this was a cool experience to follow my own vision.
They like it! Katherine was walking around singing it with the words wrong, I was dying.
I’m definitely open to it! That would be fun.
FREEZING. I did not bring warm enough clothing, not even close. It was 14 degrees outside so between each take we ran back to the car to warm up. I feel like it actually made me perform a lot better because I had this “now or never” mindset.
Yes! I’m writing a ton on my own and collaborating with other artists as well. Music is my favorite thing and I’m always going to be doing it so finding new outlets and still getting to create with my sisters feels like the best of both worlds. I have a lot of things I want to do this year.
Thank you for your time Lisa! We’ve definitely had ‘Hit Me Up’ on repeat for the past few weeks. Best of luck with all of your projects this year!
You can download ‘Hit Me Up’ by Riff Raff featuring Lisa Cimorelli on iTunes here. You can also follow Lisa on Twitter here.
What do you think of Lisa in ‘Hit Me Up’? Let us know your thoughts by tweeting us @CelebMix.