Riff

Character

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Riff
Trolls World Tour
General information
Alt. names	里夫 (Traditional Chinese) リフ (Japanese)
Voice Actor	Karan Soni
First Appearance	Trolls World Tour
Profile
Gender	Male
Home	Volcano Rock City
Species	Troll
Origin Tribe	Rock Troll
Occupation	College student Barb's lackey Drummer
Relationships
Friends	Queen Barb

Riff is Queen Barb's accomplice, right-hand man and close friend who first appeared in Trolls World Tour. He also appeared in Trolls: Holiday in Harmony as a supporting character.

Appearance

• Trolls World Tour
• Trolls: Holiday in Harmony

Normal

Riff a violet-grey Rock Troll with long black hair, a pink nose, and a rocker outfit consisting of a black beanie hat, jean vest, white shirt, torn black pants, fingerless leather gloves, and a red handkerchief with a skull print. He has an oddly large nose compared to most Rock Trolls. His eyes are covered by his beanie most of the time, but they appear to be blue in the brief time the right one is visible. Sometimes, he also appears with large silver drumsticks in his hands, twirling them about.

Riff with one of his eyes visible.

Normal

TBA

Official Bios

Trolls World Tour

“	No one is more instrumental to the Rock Trolls’ success than Barb’s right-hand man, Riff (played by a die-hard rocker). Riff is willing to do whatever it takes for her highness and the music that they share. If Barb says "jump," he asks, "how high?" If she says "rock!" he asks, "how hard?" Riff may not look like much of a thinker but, in the end, he has a showstopping epiphany…even if he is just doing it all for college credit.	”
—DreamWorks, 2020

Personality

Being Barb's right-hand, Riff is a laid-back, but also ready to hop to Barb's aid and does what he's told. He does display a mischievous side, laughing after cutting off the Funk trolls' power. According to Trolls World Tour: The Junior Novelization, Riff is mellow except when he is rocking.

Though he supports and is loyal to his queen, Riff finally gained the courage to question Barb's plans in response to Poppy's words that a world where everyone looks and sounds the same isn't harmony, asking Barb how anyone would truly appreciate their music if they lacked differences and diversity.

He also has a habit of adding the pleonasm "or something" to his sentences.

Relationships

Queen Barb

Riff is Barb's right hand man, and he basically does whatever she tells him to do. He was seen slowly edging away when Barb got a face full of glitter, so he's wary of her and fears her temper. But he later gains the courage to speak up to her by arguing that everything will be boring if everyone's forced to turn into the same thing.

Tim Heitz confirmed that Barb and Riff are like brother and sister in terms of relationship (or cousins) and there is no attraction between them, therefore reinforcing the fact that they're platonic.

Skills & Abilities

He has most normal Troll abilities, as well as the abilities of his Tribe.

He knows how to disable electricity.

Psyche

It's implied in Trolls World Tour, Trolls: Holiday in Harmony and his official bio that he isn't the smartest of Trolls, which is a common occurence for the Rock Tribe, but like many of his kind is prone to epiphany. In her victory concert, when Queen Poppy avoids the mind-controlling powers of the Rock String, he figures out that if all Trolls are the same, no one would know that they're cool, realizing something that even Barb herself didn't consider about her plan.

Music

He's a drummer, and is seen bashing drums to back up Barb, even using his head from time to time. He tends to somehow hit his drums despite his arms flailing at the same time in an erratic manner.

Etymology

Riff's concept name of "Spyke" was likely intended to make his name match Barb's name, as both refer to sharp objects. Since his name was changed to "Riff" it broke their intended naming scheme.

A "riff" is a form of Ostinato, a short melody normally used as a introduction to a song and usually its main hook. It's a very common hook in Rock music; some songs such as "Smoke on the Water" can be easily be identified within the first 4 bars of sound based purely on their guitar riffs alone.

Trivia

• Riff's hairstyle resembles one of the hairstyles that Poppy proposed to Branch in the Troll 2 Troll episode "Mousse or Gel".
• Riff was one of Timothy Lamb's favorite characters to design.
• Riff is based on the "dumb drummer" stereotype. This comes from the idea that because drumming requires mininum understanding, it's sometimes considered barely an instrument by other musicians. Other instruments involve learning harmony or melody, and require a higher level of skill to learn, while a drummer's job is mostly to set the tempo of the song to which the other instruments play, so their skill is just centered more around maintaining consistent tempo and not skipping beats.