Another Link To The Chain: Vayda

Another Link To The Chain; an ongoing series highlighting rising hip-hop artists extending the history of the genre into the future.

Representing: Atlanta, Georgia, USA

For Fans Of: Ice Spice, Flo Milli, Divine Council, Trina, Liv.e, City Girls

    Vayda drops into a generation of women that for once feel wanted and needed by the music industry. Hip-Hop had few female stars for most of its existence, and you know basically all of them off the top of your head. As the post-”Bodak Yellow” wave of women flooded the market, new lanes within rap have been founded. The Nicki’s, Lil Kim’s, Foxy Brown’s and Cardi’s of the world took the time to address relationships woes and struggles of keeping real friends, but more times than not with the aggressive tone of macho MC’s of old. Now without the pressures of assimilating to the men the freedom to truly create a new format is thriving. A young wave of women are actively adding the same eye-rolling sass that they carry more in their everyday life rather than lean into the mask of pseudo-masculinity. Ice Spice and Flo Milli are the final bosses of this style, but Vayda is pushing her agenda to that throne. 

    Over her own original production, the rising Atlanta star spills out her frustrations at two-faced friends, trying to move through a party untouched, and what she expects of her future lovers. In every moment Vayda makes being an Atlanta it-girl seem like the most fun and most annoying stature one could hold. The content of her raps isn’t just fun and down to Earth, but the packages they’re presented in separate her from nearly every one of her contemporaries.

    Between both of her stellar 2023 mixtapes (Breeze and Dawn) there’s only 25 minutes of music to go around. Each record is either a constantly evolving single verse or a couple of tidy verses tied together with a refrain so short it’s hard to even call it a hook. This disconnected style of songwriting is endlessly gripping and leaves a want to keep pressing replay, each time getting closer to understanding what's really happening. Her most structured song, “Venus On Fire”, shows her full potential as a star recording artist with caption ready bars and a sugar sweet hook to start and nearly end the 1:38 jam. Her production is similar to a budding era of Soundcloud producers influenced by sample drill (cc: literally any Shawny Binladen song) and pop raps laziest rehashing of old hits (cc: OhGheesy’s “GEEKALEEK” & Saweetie’s “My Type”) in that they do minor modulation of their samples and place them neatly within the simplest possible trap drum patterns. The hard hitting and yet simple drums leave space for her performance to be the star, while the sample transfers the extra emotion to inspire lyrics. Mix that with a bedroom studio set-up and the lo-fi warmth of Vayda’s self-produced gems and new life is born.

    The aesthetic on and off record that Vayda is slowly mastering is one without a long history. A product of a generation that focuses as much on taking the perfect Snapchat video of a party before fully getting into the mix. On the production end fans of late’ 10’s darlings Divine Council (with ICYTWAT and Lord Fubu behind the boards), experimental R&B artist Liv.e, rising star Eem Triplin and all NY Drill will find solace in the quick twitch club ready softness that backdrops each performance. An admitted reach to compare, but Diddy (and his team of producers) once upon a time had a great mastery of letting a lightly edited sample drive a record in this same way. Corollaries on the rapping side again are more modern like the living Bratz Dolls that are Flo Millii and Ice Spice, but the delivery of the soft sided poet Noname and topics perfected by The Baddest Bitch herself Trina hit a fusion dance with Vayda standing tall in their dust. 

Album To Check: Breeze

Best Songs: “Ass Out”, “Venus On Fire”, and “Ten”

Written By: Anthony Seaman (@soflogemstone on IG & Twitter)