How Riskkky17 Became One Of Pittsburgh's Hottest Rappers At 18

Riskkky17 just turned 18. He’s been on house arrest more than once, he’s lost a close friend, and he’s working his way up to being a part of Pittsburgh rap history. He’s also, right now, one of the hottest names coming out of Pittsburgh rap. Those two things aren’t separate stories. In his interview with First Impressions TV, they’re the same story.

Riskkky17 sat down with the threats, his words for his circle, to talk about where he’s from, how he found his sound, and the run he’s on with his new album Fourever The Face. What came out of it is less a highlight reel and more a straight account of how a kid from North Braddock turned a rough couple of years into a catalogue.

Where Riskkky17 Comes From

Riskkky17 is specific about where he’s from. “I’m from North Braddock Pa specifically, but from Pittsburgh for anyone out of town,” he said early in the interview, a distinction that matters more once you hear him talk about the neighborhood.

That distinction is the whole idea behind one of his earlier projects, Make Braddock Great Again. Riskkky17 said he made it because he wanted to see his neighborhood be great again, describing a kind of grey cloud that hung over the hood at the time. Asked if things have gotten better since, he didn’t hesitate. “Hell yea, we turnt up,” he said, shouting out the football team and talking about how much he loves summer in the neighborhood.

Braddock shows up again later in the interview through his friends. Fat Tap and Lil Reek, both from Braddock, sit in on the conversation, and Lil Riq has his own name for the hood: Bora Bora.

Finding His Sound

Riskkky17 has been making music in some form since he was a kid. “My mom has videos of me doing little dumb freestyles,” he said, but he draws a clear line between that and actually taking it seriously, which he says started last year when he dropped “Wake Up.”

His first real upload, “BDTK” with fellow Pittsburgh rapper Corey Bando, wasn’t even meant to be a moment. He explained he’d been dissed and made the song to hit back, and while it wasn’t the first song he’d ever recorded, it was the first one he considered a real drop.

Learning the actual craft came from his circle. He credits Marii2x and GetDown with teaching him how to use BandLab, and Marii2x specifically has become one of his closest collaborators. The two have been close since 9th or 10th grade, when they met through Riskkky17’s Propel school friends, a group that included Naz, also known as Kurry, a friend Riskkky17 lost.

The Music Getting Pittsburgh’s Attention

A few records have carried Riskkky17’s name past North Braddock. “Shark” is one of them, though he’s the first to say he’s not sure why. “I honestly don’t know,” he said about the song going viral in the city, adding that it’s not even his favorite of his own work. He shouted out Eback and J’ate, who shot the video.

“Different Strains” did something even bigger. The song’s intro moment went viral when the entire Woodland Hills football team rapped it together on Instagram Live after a win. Riskkky17 shouted out Ziggy, Scoop Smith and the Woodland Hills environment as a whole, saying he’s gotten nothing but love and support from that side.

His most viewed song on YouTube, “K4H,” became his biggest number for a simpler reason. He credits it to the number of notable faces in the video and the sheer size of the crowd that showed up to be part of it.

Not every record is about a moment going viral. “PPD” came out of a phone call. Riskkky17 said he was in the studio talking to his friend Khalil, who is fighting a murder charge, and wrote the song off the top of his head while he was still upset about his friend being gone. “Fishin,” another single, came together at a spot he can’t fully place anymore, an abandoned looking location off a Main Street in Pittsburgh.

House Arrest, Loss And Fourever The Face

House arrest is not a side detail in Riskkky17’s story. It’s threaded through most of his catalogue.

His album Free Risk was made entirely while he was locked in the house. “House arrest, house arrest, I hate house arrest,” he said, before explaining how the whole project came out of that stretch. The case behind it traces back to Monroeville police taking his PlayStation 5. He said he was fleeing from police, threw something while running, got caught with the game on him, took a plea, and ended up on house arrest with no video games, which is what pushed him to make Free Risk in the first place.

He came home in May 2026 and was on house arrest until June, but says the case itself is still open, with a court date coming up. He’s direct about where he stands on it. “I’m innocent, I didn’t do nothing to nobody, leave me alone,” he said.

That backdrop is also part of why he has a song called “F*ck House Arrest,” and yes, the video was actually shot outside. He got a brief window from his parole officer to leave the house for a friend’s birthday and used it to film. “Fuck house arrest, it’s the worst thing,” he said. “I like earth and being outside.”

His newest album, Fourever The Face, is what he considers the start of his current run. He described it as his comeback from getting shot, from house arrest, from jail, and said his friends were the ones who pushed him to keep rapping through it. He also laid out how it’s different from Make Braddock Great Again. That earlier project, he said, was made while he was still finding his sound and scrambling to put a tape together, with his grandma helping him build a home studio setup. Fourever The Face came together under different circumstances entirely. Some of the songs were written while he was locked up, and he came home right in time for his high school prom and his birthday, giving him more material and more time to prepare. “Much more stories to tell, and better quality,” is how he put it.

There’s a feature on his catalogue that Riskkky17 still thinks got overlooked. “Dead N*ggas,” his song with Hood Tali, came together fast. Riskkky17 sent Tali an open beat, and Tali sent the verse back the next night. Riskkky17 called it hard and said it didn’t get the love it deserved. Hood Tali even told him to come out to Philly to shoot the video, but house arrest kept him from making the trip.

Two of his most recent videos show where that catalogue is heading physically. “Dirty Game” was shot at RandyLand, the Pittsburgh landmark he’d heard people talk about for years but had never actually visited before the shoot. He credited his friend Shaq for pushing him to drop the song and the video, calling the final product a DMV style rap video built around the location. “Half On A Body,” filmed at Trappn Mansion Studios, is another one he points to, crediting camera work from Eback, who he says he’d keep in his pocket and take around the world if he could, alongside J’ate.

Life Outside The Music

The interview isn’t just Riskkky17 talking about himself. Fat Tap, 19, and Lil Riq, 16, sit in for most of it, and Riskkky17 is clear about what they mean to him. “You won’t really see him without them,” he said.

He explained how he linked up with Lil Riq, who he calls his blood little brother even though they’re not related by blood. They met because Riskkky17’s cousin was dating him at the time. Once they actually met, Riskkky17 said Lil Riq kept his chest up, and the two have been close ever since.

There’s a lighter, and heavier, moment buried in the friends segment too. When Riskkky17 asked Lil Riq when he had his kid, Lil Riq answered that he was 15, laughing as he said it. It’s the kind of detail that says as much about where they’re from as anything else in the interview.

Away from music, Riskkky17 said he always liked basketball but was never especially good at it, and figures he’d probably be in college if rap wasn’t the plan. He also described himself as tech savvy and something of a nerd. And in one of the more unexpected answers of the interview, he said he’s always been fascinated with guns and would love to design one himself if he never runs into legal trouble again.

He’s also started to notice what fame in his own city looks like. He said that when he’s riding around in cars without tint, kids will point and yell his name. He’s gotten love in random moments around the city, including from his little brother’s football friends, and he brought up one interaction at Taco Bell where a young fan walked up and rapped one of his songs back to him in full.

What Pittsburgh Means To Riskkky17

Riskkky17 doesn’t talk about Pittsburgh rap like it’s a scene he’s separate from. When asked about who’s actually blown up out of the city, he pointed to Wiz Khalifa as the clearest example, while acknowledging that Pittsburgh hasn’t produced many names that broke through nationally. He was also upfront about the artists who should have gotten further than they did, naming Jimmy Wopo and Trillzee as Pittsburgh figures whose stories didn’t go the way they should have.

That’s the weight underneath everything else he says about his own run. Pittsburgh rap doesn’t have a long list of names that made it out, and Riskkky17 is aware of exactly where he sits in that history.

What’s Next

Riskkky17 isn’t slowing down. He said he’s got more videos coming and a court date on the Monday following the interview that will shape a lot of what comes next. He’s confident about where things are headed regardless. “It only gets worse from here,” he said, along with, “I’m just putting my foot on they neck at this point, I’m starting to get the ball in my court.”

He also hinted, without confirming, at a possible collaborative album with Marii2x down the line, and talked about wanting to travel more and branch out beyond Pittsburgh as his catalogue grows.

Watch the full Riskkky17 interview with First Impressions TV above for the complete conversation, including the stories behind Fourever The Face, Free Risk, and what a court date this week means for his next move.