When thinking of how she would describe herself in three words, Rhianne, professionally known as GoodR3I, identifies the following: ‘young mum’, ‘go-getter’, and ‘musician’. As a Jamaican Chinese singer-songwriter who fuses various sounds and genres – from RnB to Afropop, she is a talented young woman who is driven by her musical aspirations. Growing up in South London, she has always believed that she is meant for something important, being a dreamer with big feelings that she incorporates into her art. Rhianne was brought up in an environment constantly surrounded by music, whether that was through jamming with her cousin Big Narstie, or learning the saxophone and the recorder from a young age. Participating in choir from seven to eleven years old, it is no surprise that she is immensely capable as a musician. With each track she has released, she has taken inspiration from various artists, highlighting the strong influence of Azelia Banks on the song ‘Do you’, or Coi Leray vibes on the single ‘F It’.
Motherhood and Musical Career
However, life is not easy on anyone, and in her case, becoming a mother at a young age played a large part in adding challenges to her professional goals. Trying to navigate motherhood and a long-standing desire to be a singer and an entrepreneur, she applied to True Cadence’s (TC) Music Industry Masterclass (MIM). Rhianne has always been confident in music being her destiny:
‘I think I’ve always had it’,
she says smiling. What she did need help with was becoming organised and being resourceful in insider knowledge of marketing, brand image, and guidance on how she could share her story most effectively. She credits TC for …
‘opening doors in my mind; as an overthinker, I feel that my goals have become more achievable.’
Being a mother to a one-year-old, who already has developed a musical taste of his own and can only sleep to Rhianne’s singing, she has had to learn to balance her domestic and professional life. In moments of stress and struggle to manage her time, Rhianne finds it essential to be explicit with her partner about her needs and how he could best support her.
According to a study by The Fawcett Society, one in ten mothers pause their careers to focus on childcare. Being a mother is a full-time job, but Rhianne’s love for music continues pushing her to persevere. Finding the time to devote herself to her art can be difficult, as she lives at her partner’s home with his family; thus, finding her own space is something she constantly must navigate. Though she acknowledges that this reality can be very isolating, Rhianne believes in the importance of self-care and staying organised with her day-to-day tasks. In moments of freedom, such as when she is back in her family home in Epsom or at university, she journals and experiments with her sound. One of the workshops she participated in with True Cadence focused on the importance of journaling thoughts in times of turmoil. Rhianne found this to be a valuable learning experience, not only in terms of managing stress, but also as a strategy to keep track of emotions so they can later serve as musical inspiration. Music is an immensely personal art form, and by writing down her feelings, she has found it to be a useful tool for ensuring she can draw on those memories later to inspire others who may find relatability in her lyricism.
Rhianne’s work with True Cadence
Having worked with TC since 2023, she feels that it has had a tremendous impact on her life through the opportunities she’s been provided with. TC offers paid opportunities for its trainees, attempting to compensate as much as possible for performances or panels. Through experiences such as performing at the 2024 Great Get Together at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, she continues to fight lingering feelings of stage fright. Rhianne finds live performance to be a sort of alter ego, through which she can dive back into her younger, unconfined soul. In between a packed routine of having to take care of her son Rhys, as well as attending music university classes and finding time to experiment with lyrics and music-making, finding ways to grow as an artist is no easy task. She feels grateful for TC Founder and Programme Manager Manny’s empathetic and mindful approach to reaching out or offering opportunities. Rhianne values that not only does TC enable her to grow as a performer, but that her individuality and mental health is kept in mind.
Rhianne’s grand goal is to share her experiences through a mixed media project, consisting of a live action that would release an episode after each EP. She finds importance in commemorating experiences and channeling struggles into creativity. Growing up around gang violence and seeing close friends swept up into it, she understands the difficulty of breaking out of those cycles. All her music is inspired by personal experiences and having participated in TC’s short film ‘Marbles: The Different Colours of Mental Health’, she employed spoken word poetry to reveal her feelings upon finding out about her pregnancy while working at G-Shock, not knowing how to react. Her art is a form of catharsis for feelings that may be otherwise tough to face, and working with TC has continued to push her to explore and be vulnerable. There is strength in Rhianne’s resilience and a clear, deep-rooted confidence in the way she establishes herself as an artist.
Looking to the Future
To the present day, Rhianne remains a valuable and involved member of TC, having recently contributed to the research report on mapping out East London’s Music Ecosystem in collaboration with York St John University’s Institute of Social Justice. In five years’ time, Rhianne hopes to have graduated from music school, done a headlining show, and to have accumulated a greater fan base. And then of course, her dream of having a finished project with film visuals, something she imagines might be called ‘Southside Story: The Tale of Two Sides of a Coin’. With big aspirations, she is eager to search for resources in different places, considering applying for grants, or possibly even reaching out to university peers who have an interest in musicals. Simultaneously, she doesn’t forget the importance of being patient with herself – something she thinks all artists or young mothers in her position should be mindful of doing. ‘Take a leap, no matter how small it is. Just start somewhere and give it your best shot!’ Rhianne hopes to raise her son with the same ability to be open-minded, and to tell him
‘Dream as big as you can.’
