Music has always been a mirror. It tells us who we are, what we value, and, sometimes, what we’re too afraid to face. But if music is supposed to reflect the world around us, then what does it say that so much of today’s mainstream music says… nothing at all?
Richmond once had something to say. It made music that rattled cages, music that took a stand. Municipal Waste didn’t do subtlety when they put out a shirt in 2016 with Trump’s skull full of bullet holes. Avail turned sweaty basement shows into sermons about working-class survival. Lamb of God built a career out of eviscerating war, corruption, and systemic decay.
These weren’t just bands making noise—they were saying something.
Richmond’s punk scene—and the global punk underground—still screams. It always will. But beyond that? Everything else is just vibes.
How Did We Get Here?
There was a time when mainstream music didn’t just document history—it shaped it.
Marvin Gaye saw war and police brutality and he wrote What’s Going On. Bob Dylan turned protest into poetry, his words carried through the streets by a generation unwilling to be silenced. The Beatles evolved from pop darlings into agitators, recording “Revolution” at a time when the world was literally on fire.
And then there was hip-hop. Before Rage Against the Machine made corporate America sell radical leftist politics disguised as platinum records, Public Enemy was already there—loud, unfiltered, and dead serious. Chuck D called rap the Black CNN, and when you listen to “Fight the Power”, you hear why.
Then came N.W.A., their music a raw, unflinching portrait of life in South Central L.A., made even more urgent in the wake of the Rodney King beating and the riots that followed. These weren’t just songs; they were dispatches from the front lines, reality rapped over hard beats.
Decades later, Run the Jewels picked up that mantle, blending hip-hop and activism so seamlessly that it felt like they might reignite the fire. But now, even they are aging out.
And where does that leave us?
For a moment, it felt like Kendrick Lamar might be the next in line. His entire catalog is a masterclass in dissecting race, trauma, and power. To Pimp a Butterfly played like a jazz-infused state of the union. DAMN. unpacked survival in America in ways most politicians couldn’t begin to articulate. Even his Super Bowl performance—a rare moment where mainstream music actually addressed something bigger than itself—felt like a reminder of what music can do when it chooses to.
But even Kendrick, for all his brilliance, is being overshadowed by the spectacle of his beef with Drake. What should be a battle of artistic philosophy—conscious rap vs. capitalistic excess, lyrical depth vs. pop appeal—has instead become just another moment in the content churn. Clicks over impact. Headlines over history.
So where’s the next generation? Where’s the music that doesn’t just document history but demands something from it?
And What About Richmond?
Five years ago, Richmond was a flashpoint in a national reckoning. Statues fell. The streets filled with people. The world was watching.
You would have expected a city like this—one with a history of noise, rebellion, and resistance—to respond musically. But instead, we got a blip. A handful of songs, a few moments of urgency, and then—silence. I don’t even remember a single track, do you?
It’s like that entire era has already been erased, a footnote in a news cycle that moved on.
That should bother us. A moment that big, a reckoning that visible, and Richmond’s own music scene barely had a voice in it. How does that happen? More importantly—why does it feel like nobody even remembers?
Richmond’s Indie Scene: Soft, Pretty, and Harmless
At some point, Richmond’s indie scene shifted more commercial. Maybe it started when Lucy Dacus broke out nearly a decade ago. She’s brilliant—easily one of the best songwriters this city has ever produced. And to her credit, she’s spoken out several times on important issues, using her platform to advocate for causes that matter.
But when it comes to the music itself? Like much of indie today, it’s about the self, not the world. Nostalgia, heartbreak, identity—introspective and deeply personal, but not exactly the stuff of protest anthems.
And that’s not a critique of her—it’s a critique of the industry that rewards that.
Indie music used to be a force for protest. Sleater-Kinney. Patti Smith. Bikini Kill. Artists who saw the world burning and didn’t just write about their feelings—they wrote about the fire itself. But today?
The algorithm rewards introspection over rebellion. The Taylor Swift-ification of songwriting has turned personal confession into the most valuable currency. Today, self-reflection sells. And anything that dares to challenge, confront, or unsettle? That’s just background noise.
Richmond’s Rap Scene: Just Like Indie, Stuck in the Self
It’s not just indie music —Richmond’s rap scene is caught in the same loop. Beyond a few local voices —most of what comes out of Richmond’s hip-hop community sounds just as introspective as indie. It’s about me.
A lot of songs about the trap, about the hustle, about the same cycles that hip-hop has been documenting for decades. But where’s the bigger picture?
Where’s the protest music? Where’s the rage at the real forces that shape this city?
Richmond is built on redlining, and it still determines who gets to succeed and who gets stuck. The Black male in Richmond has been systematically boxed in for generations, treated as a problem to be “managed” rather than a person with a future. The city’s institutions have spent years policing, displacing, underfunding, and ignoring its minority communities.
Where’s the voice calling that out? Who is putting that reality into bars, into beats, into something that people can’t ignore?
Hip-hop has always been a voice for the voiceless, a way to carve space where none was given. Public Enemy did it. N.W.A. did it. Where is Richmond’s version of that?
Because if we can’t even get our rap scene to call out what’s happening right in front of us—then who will?
So This Is What We Want?
Look at Iron Blossom Festival happening later this year. The headliners? The Lumineers and Khruangbin. Music that’s polished, pleasant, and easy to digest. No sharp edges, no real urgency—just a smooth, inoffensive soundtrack for people who don’t want to be bothered.
And it’s not just Iron Blossom. Look at the lineup at the new amphitheater. Look at the lineup for Friday Cheers. It’s all the same: easy to digest, empty calories. A steady diet of feel-good tunes while we pretend nothing of importance is happening.
And the worst part? This is what sells. This is what Richmond is showing up for.
So maybe it’s not the musicians who’ve changed. Maybe it’s us.
Maybe we don’t want music that challenges us anymore. Maybe we don’t expect it to. Maybe we’re perfectly content with well-crafted, emotionally satisfying nothingness.
But Richmond was never a soft city. Not really. Sooner or later, someone’s going to remember that.
Maybe, right now, in a basement, a garage, some rented-out storage unit with bad wiring and a drum kit held together by duct tape, some kid is plugging in a guitar. Maybe they’re pissed off. Maybe they’re staring at the world and realizing they’ve got power in their hands—six strings, a microphone, and the weight of something bigger than themselves.
Or maybe it’s a rapper in his bedroom, staring at a cracked screen, looping a beat, putting together words that hit harder than anything in the news. Maybe he’s watching his city change, watching the same old cycles repeat, and deciding he’s got something to say about it.
Maybe it’s a singer-songwriter, one who’s been told to keep quiet, picking up her first guitar and seeing, with absolute clarity, that the world is fucked up. And maybe, just maybe, she’s about to write the song that reminds people that music isn’t supposed to be safe.
Maybe it’s already happening, and I’m just too old to hear it. I hope so.
Richmond used to have something to say.
The real question is: Do we even want to hear it anymore?
Please prove me wrong and send me music at tony@rvamag.com. I will give them a spin.
Photo by Tamara Gore
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