Rafik
UNDRGRND Issue #1 “The 805”
Oxnard, Calif.
23 years old
Meet Jacari Rafik Jackson ("Rafik" or "Tophonee"), a 23-year-old rapper out of Oxnard. While Rafik continues to get his foot inside the hip-hop industry's door, he doubles as a popular video game streamer, gaining notoriety through streaming on Twitch. He first popped onto the Ventura County music scene with his 2019 track, "Thoomin,” when its music video which went viral on YouTube.
“Thoomin” wasn’t the extent of Rafik’s YouTube fame, as he has struck gold with various hip-hop parody remixes, with his Roddy Ricch “The Box” remix (coined “The Cox”) reaching over one million views on the site in 2020. Rafik dropped his first official EP, titled Space, in 2019, which included “Sunshine,” one of his most popular tracks to date.
The Pacifica High School alumnus takes musical inspiration from Smino, Kendrick Lamar, and Hopsin, and has also made his mark in “The 805” as a talented producer. If you’ve ever stepped into a studio with Rafik, you’ll notice right away his freakish ability to freestyle efficiently—he could record an entire album in one session if it was up to him.
“I like to read hate comments. It’s funny, like, ‘dang, you took the time out of your day to come to my thing, just to say this’...people will always find a reason to hate you, so why worry about it?”
