VMP Magazine

VMP Rising is our series where we partner with up-and-coming artists to press their music to vinyl and highlight artists we think are going to be the Next Big Thing. Today we’re featuring the debut release from Cleo Reed, Root Cause.

VMP Rising is our series where we celebrate up-and-coming bands and put their music on vinyl, often for the first time ever. Our newest VMP Rising artist is Blvck Svm, whose album jetsvm, produced by Pilotkid, is in our store now. 

During a television interview sometime in the 1960s, jazz composer Duke Ellington admitted that he was over the idea of genre. By this time, Ellington’s career had lasted well into his 60s — he’d released dozens of albums, composed thousands of songs and led bands on stages in every corner of the globe. But in this particular moment, sitting in a leather chair with his fist to his chin, he posited that Black influence on American music was omnipresent, undeniable. And not just limited to jazz or rhythm and blues or soul or gospel, but to all music. “I think the music situation today has reached the point where it isn’t necessary for categories,” he admitted. “I think that what people hear in music is either agreeable to the ear or not. You can take, probably, the most trite of all the things people are complaining about; and you give it to one of the great artists … and you’d probably get a gem of a performance.” 

VMP Rising is our series where we partner with up-and-coming artists to press their music to vinyl and highlight artists we think are going to be the Next Big Thing. Today, we’re featuring Topaz Jones’ breakout sophomore album, Don’t Go Tellin’ Your Momma (which shares a title with its companion piece, Jones’ critically acclaimed short film).

Every week, we tell you about an album we think you need to spend time with. This week’s album is Drill Music in Zion, the eighth album from Chicago rapper Lupe Fiasco.

WiFiGawd is a student of hip-hop in every sense of the word. He’s been a prominent member of the D.C. music scene since the mid-2010s and has rapped over every kind of beat from plugg music to New-Age boom-bap. His taste in rap is so voracious, it was almost a surprise to hear that, due to being raised in a Rasta community, his musical diet was mostly split between reggae and classic hip-hop. “My mom was taking me to Redman shows and I seen all that shit. Rap was already on some turnt up shit,” he remembered with a laugh. “That’s what all my old heads was on, and I wanted to be on whatever they was on.” 

The important thing to remember about Public Enemy’s Fear of a Black Planet is that it almost didn’t happen.

It’s hard to imagine any group hot off the success of a Platinum-selling album — 1988’s incendiary It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back — with a live show that equally enthralled and disgusted white audiences around the globe calling it quits so quickly after their big break. A crossroads appeared abruptly, a fork in the road amplified by the haze of celebrity.