HIP HOP & RAP




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Halloweek 2025 is Here! Our Halloween Guide To Richmond

Twenty years of Halloweek. Twenty years of fake blood, fog machines, and people insisting “Halloween’s their personality now.” And you know what? We respect it. For one glorious week, Richmond drops the pretense and remembers who it really is, a city that loves...

Sound Check! Sunami, Deathcat, John Paycheck & More!

Get the costume on, go dance around while dressed as the Lorax. Halloween always gets the city breathing, so go get lost in it. Got a show coming up? New single? Simply want someone to talk music? I am your guy at griffin@rvamag.com....

Haram: A Forbidden Punk Paradox

"When you say something is Haram it is 100 percent forbidden. You will burn in hellfire." - Nader Haram   NYC’s Haram might be the most exciting thing in punk rock right now. Or art in general. Blistering, fast, and dangerous, they’re an antidote for the...

Small Town RVA! Richmond’s First Video Game Is Here

It’s 1996, and young Richmond native Joseph Cannella is playing Pokémon Red on his grimy, well-loved Game Boy. Enchanted by the world-building, he wishes he could explore Richmond the same way he explores Pallet Town, the first area of the game. The simple overworld...

Review | A Theater of the Mind, David Byrne Live in Richmond

It’s 1983 at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and I didn’t go to class much. I took Theater 101 as an elective because I thought it would be easy (it wasn’t). One Tuesday in October, the professor ditched the day’s syllabus and spent the next 75 minutes...

Butcher Brown and the NPR Tiny Desk Session

Richmond's Butcher Brown has been on a roll as of late, which is impressive considering the worldwide lockdown, but they kept their music out there and grew their fanbase. Not easy. The guys launched their YouTube series #MothershipMonday and stayed connected during the pandemic. They hit national level news when ESPN reached out to create the...

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The Making of Backyard Boogie: A Chat with Fly Anakin

Last time we checked in with Richmond hip hop artist Fly Anakin it was around spring of last year and he had just dropped Chapel Drive, a collaborative album with Koncept Jack$on. And since then, the Southside native has yet to sit back and relax, in fact, he's been steadily toiling away in the studio to deliver Backyard Boogie, his new album,...

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Photos: Mix and Meet at Manchester Gallery

Mix And Meet is an event created by recording artist Money Makin Campaign, his producer, The Few, and business partner Adolphus Ingram. It’s an industry mixer open to the public, and to any genre of music and arts. Richmond artist Campaign had done some touring with AddVentures Music, a company that provides production and promotion help in...

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Photo Essay: Strange Matter’s RVA Lyricist Lounge (Episode 1)

New life is being breathed into Richmond's rap community with the introduction of the RVA Lyricist Lounge, hosted by Radio B.  The monthly event is meant to be a platform for local rappers and emcees to showcase their lyrical talent on stage and against each other in battles.  Taking inspiration from the classic nature of hip-hop and rap cyphers,...

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The RVA Videos You Missed in 2017: HIP HOP/RAP/TRAP

For over a decade now, Richmond has had a varied hip hop scene supported by a small group of OGs that took it upon themselves to make a scene. Richmatic at the old Twisters (now Strange Matter) comes to mind as a good example of how it worked in the early 00s -- the creation and trading of cassette mix tapes, pinned up fliers on telephone poles,...

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