Laraj "LT" Thomas performs on stage at the Sprint Pavillion as an opener for Jacquees in September, 2019.
Music reflects the spirit of a community. With each new generation, artists must find ways to keep the music they create playing around town. In the Charlottesville area, a small but dedicated group of people keeps the hip-hop scene thriving. Musicians like Channing “Mr. Gray” Gray and Malcolm “Waasi” Wills work with a variety of producers, videographers, and other local rappers and vocalists to produce their songs and organize shows. Some, including Laraj “LT” Thomas, regularly open for bigger acts that come to Charlottesville.
It’s a collaborative scene: Many of these artists have known each other since grade school, and have worked together for years. They’ve built a modest fan base through music videos and shows throughout central Virginia. But the work to keep the hip-hop subculture alive in this area is never-ending. Words and pictures by Zack Wajsgras
Hip-hop fans and friends of Laraj “LT” Thomas gather near a backyard pool in Louisa for Thomas’ “Hall of Fame” album release party.
Channing “Mr. Gray” Gray (center) shows his music to Aaron “Trash Bandicoot” Springel (bottom right), Dontae “Diggs540” Diggs (top right), and Stanley “Duzi” Lovell (left), a group of musicians who go by the name Dummy Boi Geng, in their studio in Staunton. The artists met on social media through a mutual interest in each other’s music.
Malcolm “Waasi” Wills prepares to shoot a scene in a music video for his song “Lo” at a laundromat in Charlottesville. Wills performed on a DIY tour with two other artists, traveling to venues throughout Virginia and Pennsylvania. He says he recently discovered a pocket of fans at Lock Haven University, after a member of the wrestling team stumbled upon his songs online and played them for friends.
Thomas records a song for his new album at Charlottesville’s I Feel Famous Music Studio, run by local producer and director Doughman. The studio is used by many different artists in town for both recording and shooting music videos.
Gray practices a set of newly written verses in his kitchen in Richmond in August 2018. He works a side job as a waiter, as well as weekly entertainment events through his company Trap Hippy Entertainment, to fund his musical endeavors.
Fans react as musician Jacquees takes the stage at the Sprint Pavilion in September 2018. The show had four local openers: Jamaal “J-Willz” Williams, Thomas, Wills, and Dequinte “Quin Bookz” Booker, who all performed for the crowd that gathered to see the traveling superstar.
Young community members compete in a dance-off during a back-to-school backpack giveaway in Tonsler Park in August 2018. The event was jointly held by WVAI 101.3 JAMZ and Region Ten to provide school supplies and live music to young hip-hop fans. Local DJs and artists participated in the family-friendly day.
Wills takes a break while filming the music video for his song “Fall For You” at the Culbreth Theatre parking garage at the University of Virginia in October 2019. When Wills was a student at Monticello High, his teachers encouraged him to use the school’s recording studio to experiment and record his own sounds. “That studio was everything,” he says.
Jaquan “DJ Almighty” Middleton records a show for WVAI 101.3 JAMZ in the early afternoon in October 2019. He says the live element of mixing music is becoming a lost art. “This is my safe haven, when
I’m here,” Middleton says.
Gray records songs at Charlottesville’s I Feel Famous Studios. He released his first songs in 2013 but has been making music with local friends since he was in high school. He uses a variety of different producers, and collaborates with other artists in Charlottesville.
Middleton checks in with the secretary at the Virginia Radio Coop, home to hip-hop station 101.3 JAMZ. Corporate radio giant Saga Communications, which owns 106.1 The Corner and other stations, filed a petition with the FCC in September to block license renewals for JAMZ and four other Charlottesville nonprofit stations. If successful, the petition would shut down the only station with programming directed at the city’s African American audiences.
Thomas performs during a release party for his album Hall of Fame, in a backyard in Louisa in July 2018.
Local duo Equally Opposite brings an element of fun to Paul Dixon’s video for “Teach You,” a track by Las Vegas rapper J. Ran (center). The Nine Pillars Hip Hop Music Video Showcase screens at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center on Friday. Courtesy of NOXID
Doughman got into filming music videos because he had to.
The area music producer was handing out beats to rappers left and right, but they wanted more than just music. They wanted a visual component to match the aural experience created in the recording booth. They wanted music videos.
This was back in 2012 or so, says Doughman, and at the time, there wasn’t really anyone local making music videos for rappers. Doughman had been vlogging some of the studio sessions, and so he took it on.
Since then, other independent filmmakers have joined the rap video hustle, and eight of them (including Doughman) will show their work at this year’s Virginia Film Festival.
Music videos have been vital to hip-hop since MTV aired Run DMC’s “Rap Box” in 1984. Since then, rap videos have had a lasting effect on the music video industry, and on American visual culture as a whole.
But the music video “is more important [now] than it has ever been for hip-hop,” says Cullen “Fellowman” Wade, rapper and co-director of the Charlottesville-based Nine Pillars Hip Hop Cultural Fest. The internet is full of more music videos than MTV could ever air. Wade’s even heard some local rappers say that if they can’t make a music video to share on social media, there’s no use in recording the song in the first place.
Some mainstream, high-budget rap videos have come to be regarded as a form of short film, but that consideration hasn’t extended to their independent, low-budget counterparts, says Wade, who, in addition to his musical pursuits, co-hosts“Arts & Crass: The Highbrow Lowbrow Film Podcast.”
But the opportunity to screen independent rap videos at the Virginia Film Festival—which, in recent years, has hosted Spike Lee (2017) and Allen Hughes (2018), two of the biggest names at the intersection of film and hip-hop—can help bring that sort of credit to the genre, says Wade.
In curating the showcase, Wade asked independent filmmakers in the local hip-hop scene to submit their best work, knowing he’d get different pieces that together demonstrate a breadth of creativity and vision.
Paul Dixon (aka NOXID), a music producer who’s new to filmmaking, submitted the video for “Teach You,” a track by Las Vegas rapper J. Ran featuring Charlottesville duo EquallyOpposite.
Throughout the song, J. Ran tries to woo a girl, and the video follows the rapper on his ultimately successful journey. But that alone wouldn’t be much of a film-worthy story, decided Dixon. He wanted a little comic relief.
EquallyOpposite’s Zachary “ZacMac” McMullen and Lamar “Gordo” Gordon go after a girl and get completely, utterly, rejected. Dixon laughs when he talks about it—“they’re so cartoonish, so alive, and animated. It’s kind of perfect.”
Doughman’s submission, his video for Chef G’s freestyle track, “No Hook,” is a completely different type of video—this one sticks out to him for a number of reasons, namely the “gritty feel” that matches the essence of the song.
Chef G is the only person in the “No Hook” video, and he raps in three different locations: sitting on a bike on a street corner, on a broken-down mattress in an overgrown yard, and on the eaves of a yellow house. His presence is constant and his flow inescapable. You can’t help but listen.
And that, says Doughman, is exactly what a video can do for a song, for an artist. “Let’s just say, it’ll give you another look…it’ll make you listen different once you have a vision to it.”
The Nine Pillars Hip Hop Music Video Showcase screens at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center on Friday, October 25.
Louis Hampton and Damani Harrison of The Beetnix perform at the Nine Pillars Cultural Hip-hop Fest. Photo by Ron Paris
It’s a gray Sunday evening, 50-something degrees and drizzling when The Beetnix step onto the outdoor stage at IX Art Park. It’s been raining all day, but a crowd of more than 100 has gathered on the graffiti-painted concrete ground in front of the stage. Many of them hold their phones and tablets in the air, precipitation be damned, ready to capture Charlottesville’s most legendary hip-hop duo on video.
“Come closer,” Damani “Glitch One” Harrison says to the crowd as he picks up a mic. With his arms stretched out wide, Louis “Waterloo” Hampton beckons for everyone to move in closer.
For Harrison, 39, hip-hop has been part of his life since he was a kid. A military brat who grew up in Germany and Philadelphia, he remembers exactly where he was when the music caught him.
