VMP Magazine

In July, VMP celebrated our 50th Classics Record of the Month with Abbey Lincoln’s It's Magic! In honor of this incredible milestone, we invited members and non-members to participate in an essay contest to win the top prize: nearly every Classics record we’ve pressed — 40+ total, valued at $2,000. Contestants were asked to respond to one of six prompts with an essay about one of our 50 Classics records (or their future pick for the Track).

With over 200 amazing entries in just two weeks, picking three winners was no easy task. Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts, to every single applicant who took the time to write such heartfelt, detailed pieces about our Classics records. We read and enjoyed each entry, and deliberated for a great deal of time.

Congratulations to our second-place winner Thomas Werner, who wrote about Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s Gospel Train, and our third-place winner Chris Prince, who wrote about Art Blakey’s The Freedom Rider. You can read their entries in our weekly newsletter, The Standard, in the upcoming weeks. (Not a subscriber? You can change that in your VMP email preferences!)

Below, you can read the grand-prize winning essay by Alex Maidy, who shared his exciting personal connection to none other than our 50th Classics artist herself, Abbey Lincoln.