If you’re looking for a smooth track to play while you’re cruising around Richmond on a late Friday night, look no further. A new face on the RVA scene, Deron, has provided us a new hit.
If you’re looking for a smooth track to play while you’re cruising around Richmond on a late Friday night, look no further. A new face on the RVA scene, Deron, has provided us a new hit.
“[The track] is a record that was inspired by my move,” The 27-year-old rapper said. He recently relocated to the Richmond area from Washington DC, and with this change of scenery he’s buried himself within the RVA hip hop scene best he can. Lucky for him, he’s gotten a bit of help from local mainstay Chance Fischer to help him break out locally after having a number of hits up north.
“Coming here is a change of culture and a change of promotion,” Deron said. “Going from an environment where it’s always on one-hundred, 24/7, to an environment where it’s more chill.”
The emotion and feel of the track provides a massive amount of vibes and good energy, something the rapper thinks is pervasive around RVA.
“I feel people can hear how cool and relaxed I sound throughout the record,” he said.
Fischer noted the irony of him performing on a track called “Southside” when he’s actually from Oregon Hill, just north of the River. But for the second rapper on the track, he thinks it helps because it sticks with the track’s theme of changes in someone’s life or even within the next 24 hours.
“It’s one of those mood setting song when you’re moving to the next phase of your day and you’re just cruising,” Fischer said. “This is a type of song people are going to play.”
This song launches off at a good tempo and keeps the “vibes” solid as Chance and Deron glide over a distorted orchestral beat.
Beyond partnering with Chance, rapper and audio engineer Michael Millions also stepped up to provide engineering support and studio space for the track.
While “Southside” marks the first collab between Millions and Deron, the chemistry the two display in the song is so unmatched you can’t even tell. Millions engineered the song to create the vibe around the track. “When I heard the hook I was like ‘this shit going to bang,’” Millions said.
Prior to the release of “Southside,” Deron released a song titled “What it Gon Be” produced by his friend Sur Jazz in DC’s House Studio. With the move under this belt, the months between have offered Deron some time to figure out RVA’s scene a bit more, though he admits he dropped any hangups when he went back into the studio this time around.
“I was trying to find my groove and make sure people listened to my song,” he said. “But for this I didn’t care about any of those things.”
Deron hopes to take it easy after he releases “Southside,” but he’ll be back in the studio creating and working on music with Millions in no time.
“I want to contribute in the scene here,” he said. “So I can ultimately help everyone out.”
