Source : the age
Melbourne MC VV-Ace knows more than most how long a debut project can take. When we speak, the Congolese-Australian rapper has just returned from a trip to Congo to attend to family business, and he admits he’s battling jet lag.
But the show must go on, especially when the topic of conversation is his debut EP Rebirth, a project seven years in the making.
The six-track release is dark and gritty, a world away from some of VV’s recent, summery singles like Eh Le Le Le and Arjay. Over the past two years he’s released a string of singles that have tantalised Australian rap lovers, proving VV-Ace’s mettle as one of the most talented spitters in the country.
Hailing from Melbourne’s north, an area with an embarrassment of riches when it comes to emerging rappers, he’s built a reputation as a no-nonsense tough talker. But Rebirth shatters that.
From the opening bars of Forever Grateful there’s a depth to Ace’s lyrics that, to date, hasn’t been present. The track discusses his mental state at the time of writing, delving into the front he felt he was putting up. “Thoughts of suicide that would cross over my mind/Showed resilience, man, I put up a fight,” he raps. It’s the most vulnerable he’s ever been on record, and it’s powerful.
Ace says it was a conscious decision to open up. “People see VV-Ace and it’s a character, it’s some hard guy. People say there’s a lot of drill energy in my music, refer to me as nonchalant or whatnot. And I’m like, it’s never been that.
“Me displaying my emotions has always been an anxiety thing. I’ve always overcomplicated things, I overthink things, I get overstimulated. ‘Am I doing too much? Am I not doing enough?’
“In previous songs I’ve just been straight. It’s very mono. You don’t get much of my personality. But in this, I wanted to open up and be like, all right, there’s more to Ace, this is what I deal with behind the scenes. Obviously there’s VV-Ace but there’s also me, there’s also James.”
That’s not to say there isn’t energy to Rebirth. Well Off is a warning shot to the rest of the scene, while Runner moves with the pace of a runaway train. Ace acknowledges the project, which was completely self-funded, has taken a long time to come to fruition.
“I’m privileged because I’ve got a good team around me, great resources. But obviously it wasn’t always like that,” he says. “Being self-funded, it’s definitely demotivating. It takes a toll on your pockets. Making music ain’t cheap, and that’s why when they say, ‘Oh, drop, drop, drop!’, it’s not as easy as that.”
The admission is a sign of the times in Australian rap. Putting out projects comes at a cost. For anyone looking at doing something similar, VV-Ace has valuable advice.
“I’ve been fortunate enough to have people around me that I grew up with, and we built friendships not even off music, just pure friendships. And so when it comes to music, it’s like, ‘I can do this for you’, and we work together, vice versa. But it’s very important to build a community, a team that has the same goals, same passion, and it makes things a little bit cheaper.”
It’s not just VV-Ace putting on for Melbourne’s north, either. The project is executive produced by Channy Wings, while he’s surrounded by artists like Lxrdmc, Ogwetth and BabyBlaccson.
It’s an area that exemplifies Australia’s multicultural image, with suburbs like Bundoora, Greensborough and Reservoir making up the north. Marshall Street Studios, where VV-Ace works from and a home to many of the north’s best MCs, is located in Bundoora where, according to the 2021 census, both parents of 54.2 per cent of residents were born overseas – much higher than the Victorian average of 41.3 per cent.
Much has been made of western Sydney as a hotspot for Australian rap but a little bit of digging reveals that VV’s surroundings are home to some of Australia’s most exciting MCs, which has put a battery in his back. As a representative of the African diaspora, Ace knows that his success is bigger than him. As he blows up, he’s looking to bring a spotlight to the area that’s long been missing.
“I want to be able to bridge a gap between countries, between America, the UK and Australia,” he explains. “That’s what I’ve always wanted. You see big artists come here and they don’t even know there’s a music scene down here. They’re so out of the loop. Or they’re only put on to Sydney artists.
“I’d like to introduce also, in a sense, Africa. There are African artists that are coming up and doing their thing, and I feel like there’s not really a light shined on African artists in this country. So if I can bridge that gap where I can be like, ‘look, these are all my African brothers that are out here, the community’s big, the music’s big’, it’d be amazing.”
VV-Ace’s debut EP Rebirth is out now.
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