Every Friday night, RVA Mag drops one scorcher of a playlist curated by Virginia’s (or the UK’s) most influential artists, musicians, and institutions. This week UK actor, Samuel Roukin, from AMC’s “Turn: Washington Spies,” “Harry Potter”, “Agents of SHIELD,” and “Salem” brings you an EDM playlist that will burst your eardrums, shatter your lousy week, and hype you for all the nighttime journeys you are about to embark on this weekend.
Go make moves tonight Virginia.
Last night there was rain, thunder, lightning, and then there was Cole Hicks. Sometimes a great night will have a sense of destiny, some purpose that shakes us from the mediocrity of our everyday lives – last night’s musical showcase at The Camel felt like that. With Richmond squads like the Association of Great Minds ripping up the East Coast, Hicks, who headlined the show to premiere her debut album, “May Day,” has landed at just the right time as Richmond’s rap and hip-hop scene continues along a path of national prestige.
But that’s not where the night started.
The night opened with local jazz and soul singer Kenneka Cook who’s ingenuity on stage is as compelling as it is dreamlike, creating musical atmospheres that become a livable presence for everyone in the room. While a force in her own right, Cook brought the crowd together; her beats and lyrics taking us on a perceptive journey into a soundscape that envelops the watcher.
In between sets, Richmond great Illa Styles took the stage with singer Franciose Hamilton. Shrouded in a purple haze, they brought an energy to the building and primed the crowd for Cole Hicks.
Hicks’ lyrics hit the heart and formed a groove right into the soul. At one point, Hicks told the audience “be true to yourselves.” While an old maxim, nothing can be more apparent in 2018 and hearing it from the stage sounded like poetry. Hicks brought a feeling of genuine authenticity from the crowd, putting her entire self into the work. Her music creating a vibe that is inclusionary, prescient, her beats dropping like the thunder outside. There was an energy from the stage, it was electric. When she was joined by Joey Gallo that same energy only increased, becoming a kinetic force of rhyme and reason. Towards the end of the set, Kai’la, joined Hicks on stage to close out the night by claiming verses that were raw and relevant, a testament to where this movement is going.
Afterward, RVA Mag spoke with Illa Styles who said, “The Richmond rap and hip-hop scene has spent years and years maturing, coming into its own. It offers an experience real, genuine, and true. That is what makes this present time, here in Richmond, special.”
He is not wrong. Richmond is what’s happening.
Some of the best photos of the night can be found below:
*Jack Clark and Landon Shroder contributed to this report. All photos by Landon Shroder
Music Sponsored By Graduate Richmond
A lot happened in Richmond this past weekend, all of which showed that the River City still rules the Commonwealth. There are obviously great things going on all over Virginia, but none quite stack up to what Richmond can pull off in the course of 72 hours.
Just a quick list of what went down this weekend: Activists stood in solidarity with the national prison strike at the Richmond City Jail, there was the 16th Annual Happily Natural Day, the ever-eventful Cultural Crawl RVA, Thank You, Aretha Franklin: A Life Celebration with Gallery 5, the start of Black Breastfeeding Week, Wing Chow’s opening exhibit “Flux” at Artspace, and Full Moon Fever at the Broadberry – just to name a few that we can remember (hint, hint).
And no doubt, the squad missed something rad because we can only manifest our physical presence at so many places at any one time. Yet, this is RVA Mag so we clearly threw our Saturday in the direction of Vinyl Conflict and the Rest in Pieces Appreciation Day Block Party featuring bands like Nosebleed, Slump, and of course, Richmond hip-hop giant Nickelus F. We also dropped in on the 7th Episode of Lyricist Lounge at Strange Matter, where Radio B, Illa Styles, BC Music and other artists performed and competed to be the live cypher champions.
The collaboration between scenes in Richmond – the punk and rap scene – is as inspiring as it is essential, and proves that the River City is one of the few outposts in the Commonwealth that is still looking towards the future in both substance and style.
Some of the best photos from these events can be found below:
Vinyl Conflict Customer Appreciation Day
Lyricist Lounge: 7th Episode
We were already knocking back our second shot of whiskey when Nickelus F walked into Commercial Taphouse, the prolific rapper just returning to Richmond after his first national tour. Sliding into the booth alongside us with a worn backpack and noticeable jet lag below his eyes, you wouldn’t suspect that he is one of the most dominant rappers on the east coast.
That’s Nickelus F.
At 35, Nickelus F, carries himself with a casual humility, one that is both sly and confident. “I’m a master of names. Like…I’m Nickelus F, but I’m also Sweet Petey, I also go by Jellyfish Jones, Nick Fury, Bison Beckford…” He names a few more, his hands gesturing for each. “Rufus Ogelthorpe, Gomez Garfunkel, Horace Hardbody…it’s my thing.” His grip on the name game starts with MF Doom, one of his top inspirations and a mentor in rap aesthetics, telling us, “You got MF Doom, but you also got Madvillain, you got fucking King Gidora.”
Settling in for what was obviously becoming a boozy interview, we ordered another round of whiskeys, clinking glasses to his successful tour. When asked how it went, Nick popped out of his seat full of energy bringing to life the atmosphere of being on the road.
“The shows, that’s what it was for me,” Nick said, telling us that his fanbase has always been diverse which adds to the energy of the shows. Watch any of the Instagram videos Nick posted during the tour and it is not hard to see that kinetic energy on full display. Yet he also acknowledged how his verse adds to the accessibility of his music. “I feel like a lot of things I talk about are human truths. So doing those shows, I love the energy.”
While no stranger to performing, this was his first continuous tour and while Richmond is always close to his heart, he said the tour stops in Memphis, New Orleans, Houston, and Atlanta were some of his favorite shows, describing Philly as “fucking insane.”
“It was very eye-opening. It is hard to see it all if you are not getting out there touching people in these different cities. That was the powerful part for me,” he said.
Pointing out how intense some of the shows could be, he said, “I tapped myself out early! I lost my voice from performing way too hard after my third show and my knee was still sore from stage diving.” That’s not hard to imagine if you’ve ever been to one of Nickelus F’s shows. His presence on stage is confrontational, visceral, and totally engaged with the audience.
Recently heralded by Pitchfork as a leading figure of Richmond’s rap scene, Nick is seeing some major airtime and rightfully so. The veteran rapper, who dropped his eighth studio album, “Stuck” back in May, has cultivated a strong following from nearly two decades in the scene and is quick to admit that everyone is talking about Richmond. “This is the place. Even if you go anywhere else, even in the 757, Northern Virginia, they’re all talking about the Richmond scene.”
Yet success doesn’t happen in a vacuum and according to Nick, collaboration is key for artists and something they need to embrace in a small city. “[I want] to grow this city, to grow the culture. I want to work with more people, do more collaborations, I love brainstorming and throwing ideas around,” he said. The rapper said he’s been in talks with Richmond metal band Division of Mind about a potential collaboration. “We talked about it on the tour, I really fuck with what they’re doing,” he said.
That’s the River City grind which is putting Richmond on the map.
Joining Nickelus F on tour was fellow Richmond native and hip-hop heavyweight, Lil Ugly Mane. Back in 2015, the two joined forces to release a joint album, “Trick Dice,” which was distributed as a cassette throughout Richmond and sold out in almost an hour.
“Ugly Mane is like a crazy genius, he’s well versed and he comes from the punk scene, he’s a pure dude with a high integrity level in the music he creates,” he said. “When we did ‘Trick Dice’ together, none of those songs sounded the way they did when I initially recorded them.”
Comparing Ugly Mane to Frankenstein, Nick described him as “the doctor who created the monster.”
While many artists from the River City look elsewhere for the break, striking out for New York or Los Angeles, Nick still loves the grit of Richmond. While he was quick to mention some of the other scene pioneers like Slapdash who created Epic Fest, he also talked about how culture acts as the connective tissue for the entire rap community. “What’s going to blow people up from out of here is light being on the whole scene, that’s what makes it special. It is not just going to be one person. People are going to fall in love with the culture of the city the same way they did with Atlanta, Houston, and the Bay Area. The culture blows an area up.”
Yet its not just the music that keeps Nick grounded. Being a father to two sets of twins is only one of Nick’s accomplishments. Add that to eight studio productions, an induction into the 106 and Park Freestyle Friday Hall of Fame, and a recent degree from VCU in strategic advertising and Nick is well placed for what’s next.
And even though he just got off an intense tour, Nickelus F isn’t ready to relax just yet. He said he wants to tour more often, but wants to fly solo for his next trip on the road. For this, he made another investment shortly after graduation – an investment in himself to better market his brand. “I took what I have and what I learned about websites, made an LLC, I got Illustrator and Photoshop, I made shirts. With what I have now, I feel much more liberated and less worried about the future.”
With the growing rap and hip-hop community starting to extend past the creative confines of New York, Atlanta and Los Angeles, more eyes have been put on smaller communities to enrich the market with genuine originality.
And with few cities able to compete on the grounds of tension and controversy, Richmond has the resources to incubate the next wave of artistry. Few know this better than Nick, who has articulated his challenges into the narratives and verse he is now known for.
“Before I went back to school, I went through dead-end warehouse jobs,” he said. “I’ve always worked hard jobs where I was easily replaceable – they could chop me and fill somebody else in – and it happened, right after I had my babies.” All of his hard work has started to pay off though and for the first time, Nick has started to see a return on his rap career, telling us, “It’s amazing because I’ve made more money since graduating [last May] than I have in a long time – like, since ever.”
After several more drinks and some off-the-record banter, we got up to leave. On the walk, a person or two would break away from their tables to shake Nick’s hand. Some simply wanted to congratulate him on a successful tour, while the bar owner told Nick the next time he came in the first round was on him.
A short time later we rendezvoused at the house of our managing partner to bullshit over some more whiskey and a joint. I gave him one more question, asking him what’s next?
He answered confidently, “A whole lot of ruckus.”
In the meantime, catch Nickelus F at Vinyl Conflict’s upcoming Customer Appreciation Day concert Sat., August 25 alongside hardcore punk bands Bib, Nosebleed, Deviant, and Slump.
Music Sponsored By Graduate Richmond
Photos by Landon Shroder
*This story has been updated
The statue glorifying Confederate General Robert E. Lee, which sits on Monument Ave. in Richmond, was vandalized in the early hours of the morning. Dark red paint was splashed all over the plinth of the statue with the letters BLM written on the base – seemingly an acronym for the group Black Lives Matter.
Two capitol police officers were present at the statue, but declined to comment on when they arrived on the scene. However, RVA Mag spoke to Joe Macenka, the public information officer for the Capitol Police – who patrol and manage the security of state property, including the statue of Lee. Macenka said the department was notified shortly after 6 a.m., and the incident likely took place in-between one of their patrols. While not commenting on the particulars of the investigation, he said they were following a “number of angles.”
RVA Mag also spoke with an employee for the Department of General Services who was present at the scene to oversee the cleaning crew, who said he was called at 7:30 a.m. alerting him to what happened. At 9:30 a.m. the cleaning crew had not started power washing the statue, saying they were still waiting for the investigators to arrive.
Richmond’s Confederate statues are vandalized frequently, with Jefferson Davis being spray painted twice in the past year. This comes at a time of contentious conversation surrounding the role of Confederate statues in public spaces and the finalization of a report by Richmond’s Monument Ave Commission, which recommended that Davis’ statue be removed.
The Capitol Police reached out to RVA Mag at 1:30 p.m. to suggest that the paint used to vandalize the statue came from a “high pressured sprayer” or a refillable fire extinguisher.
At his community office hours last night, Mayor Levar Stoney announced a change to the printed agenda; instead of infrastructure and education, public safety would be the first topic addressed.
Since the killing of #MarcusDavidPeters, his death has been the number one issue the community wants Stoney to address. Before opening the meeting for questions, he brought up the last office hours, where the coalition and allies for Justice and Reformation for #MarcusDavidPeters were also in attendance. Invoking the “golden rule”, to treat others that way you want to be treated, he rambled about respect and professionalism, to a community that’s seeking justice for a slain man.
Following his cue, I have my own recap of those office hours.
On July 17, the coalition questioned the mayor, asking why he skipped the June 30 meeting, which was called by the community to discuss demands they’d presented to the Richmond Police Department at the #JusticeAndReformation rally on June 2.
As much as this city would like to call Stoney the exception to politics-as-usual, he still demonstrates typical programming. How does this typical programming present? Think canned, pre-written responses from politicians that are practiced in order to engage the public during contentious political environments. The introduction to last night’s meeting was one of them.
When pressed on the night of July 17 about the investigation into #MarcusDavidPeters, Stoney’s auto-response was “trust the process.” Last night, Stoney introduced the public safety portion of the meeting by telling the audience to be on their best behavior, then opened up the floor for questions; something I’m sure he regretted immediately.
For starters, the family of #MarcusDavidPeters was under the impression that Stoney was out of town – in Williamsburg – the day of the proposed June 30 meeting initially called for by the coalition.
Stoney officially notified the family on 11:30 am, 90 minutes prior to the community meeting, that he could not attend.
Stoney had other plans than attending the meeting for #MarcusDavidPeters.
However, Debbie Rowe, a concerned community member, started her question portion last night by confirming she saw Stoney at Taza Café immediately after she left the June 30 meeting. Sparking the question; if he was in town, why was he not at the meeting?
Stoney’s response was that he decided to keep his plans because he made them months in advance. He had other plans.
Ya know, rather than cancel them and attend the meeting held by the community after a black man, suffering a mental health crisis, was shot by a police officer. Remember what’s happened in cities that have failed to rise to the challenge of situations like these? Ferguson, Baltimore; this list can go on and on.
But, hey, plans.
Princess Blanding, sister of Peters, and the most vocal proponent for accountability spoke next and asked one question: how many times was her brother shot? The question seemed simple. If you’ve seen the body camera footage released by RPD you will have heard two shots, and two shots matched what we’ve heard from the family’s report per the RPD.
Stoney responded by saying he “would not talk about details of the investigation and that there is a process to this.” Princess Blanding responded by reading from an after-action report, released on July 24. She had to update the community since the administration clearly would not.
In this report, the police found that #MarcusDavidPeters was shot three times, not two. And that the toxicology report found that there were no substances within his system. It appears that the city misled the public about the number of shots fired, but maintains that #MarcusDavidPeters was indeed suffering from a psychotic breakdown when he was killed by the RPD. [Editor’s note: We could not obtain a copy of this report; other media outlets report it may be preliminary.]
After her update, Princess Blanding’s follow-up questions included themes that would press the city for more transparency. Now that the investigation has gone to the Commonwealth’s Attorney, why is Stoney still saying “there’s a process,” rather than answering the actual questions posed by the community?
Why hasn’t the body camera footage been released to show what happened after they dragged #MarcusDavidPeters’ body from the bushes? Where’s the footage of the third shot?
And, finally, why hasn’t the city taken the demands of Peters’ family seriously? More so, why have they not discussed the implementation of the Marcus Alert? A city-wide alert, proposed by the coalition, which would allow both the police and the community to engage in de-escalation techniques when a person might be experiencing a mental health crisis.
Stoney insisted that he would be open to hearing ideas if reformation and policy needs are necessary. But the other end of that statement is, when would it be necessary? After another unarmed black man experiencing a mental health crisis was shot and killed by police?
The mic drop moment happened when Kyondra Briggs, cousin of Peters, addressed the Mayor’s canned auto-response, “if reform is needed.” She scolded him for it. She said it was an internal conflict to simultaneously maintain respect for him as the mayor while listening to him repeat the dreaded phrase, “if reform is needed.”
In the end, we all watched the same video. To reform or not to reform is not the question. Not in 2018, when black men and women are still being killed in disproportionate numbers by the police. Reform is the answer. It is the only way to honor the memory of a man who deserved help but received death.
If there was a message tonight from the coalition and allies of #MarcusDavidPeters, it came from his cousin, Briggs. Closing the public safety portion, she said, “You owe my family something and that’s a meeting, that’s an apology, that’s justice, that’s reformation, and you can keep the bullcrap.”
On July 31, the next community office hours with Mayor Stoney will be at Pine Camp Community Center, starting at 6:30 p.m. Richmond, your voices are clear, but will the administration hear you?
*Marcus David Peters is #MarcusDavidPeters; the hashtag is a way for us to honor our fallen community members who were shot and killed by the police. Say his name.
