The radio is long dead.
Once the stalwarts of any local scene, radio DJs have been replaced by podcast hosts and music industry influencers. Car radio presets are gathering dust, replaced by the eminence of aux cords and Bluetooth systems. Radio countdowns gave way to industry-curated Apple and Spotify playlists.
What’s left of the radio is dominated by corporate conglomerates, swapping local tastemakers for financially safer national programming. A once dominant entertainment medium — and a key force in the international rise of hip-hop — radio was irrevocably fractured by technological and industrial shifts.
Verbal Van Gogh’s new EP, Top9@8, playfully resurrects the radio format in the streaming age. Released on Black Friday, the EP’s novel format nods to the former prevalence of radio countdowns in delivering 10 tracks punctuated by narration from DJ Dexter Dynamite.
Local lyricist Verbal Van Gogh (VVG) cuts this radio format with the mixtape era. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, DJs like Clue (New York), Drama (Atlanta) or Screw (Houston) would curate compilations of up-and-coming talent rapping over already-popular beats.
VVG’s take — featuring beats from popular tracks by Lil Wayne and Drake, among others — is punctuated by two commercials and guest call-ins from prominent hip-hop media voices around Charlotte. If you close your eyes, Top9@8 feels like you’ve traveled in time back to 2002.
While nostalgia is far from a novel expressive device, Van Gogh’s use of it in the streaming era is remarkable. Rather than releasing these 10 songs as individual tracks linked by their radio countdown format, Van Gogh released the EP as one 27-minute track.
“It forces you to just sit down,” Van Gogh told Queen City Nerve. “Get you a drink. Get relaxed. Or, if you’re in the car, you know, I’m driving to Concord Mills from Plaza Midwood. Put it on. It’ll be done before you get there. It’s one of those type of things where I want people to have an experience.”
The EP is, indeed, an experience. After a brief introduction by DJ Dexter Dynamite, VVG’s neighbor and collaborator on the project, the album kicks off with four braggadocious tracks featuring cranium-splitting, battle-rap lyricism.
On the opening “$aturday in $hibuya,” VVG declares his authority (“Rap god the bar-father come to spank the children…”) while on “Metaphor Messiah” he gets biblical (“Supreme beaker and supreme speaker, far as streetwear I’m Supreme Jesus…”).
After a call-in from his wife, T. Lee, who dedicates the lovingly raunchy fifth track “Loving You” to him, VVG pivots toward introspection in the final four songs. He explores the cost of success (“10:30 @ Titan” and “Blair Underwood”) and his reputation in the city (“Foreign Money” and “Perfect 7”) before closing with a densely lyrical shit-talking bonus track titled “No Favor$.”
In addition to the project’s anachronistic format, Top9@8 features lyricism that pays homage to a previous generation of hip-hop wordsmiths. While VVG has tried to meet the demands of the streaming era in the past, his dense, punchline-rich lyricism feels the most authentic to his practice as an emcee.
“That’s the stuff that stands the test of time,” he said of his style. “I tried it, man. I had a couple projects where I dumbed it down, and I was trying to go to get hits and stuff. That’s just not me. I talk in punchlines, man. That’s just how I talk. So it’s just natural for me.”
VVG leverages this lyricism to explore his continued dedication to the city of Charlotte in Top9@8, a theme that stretches across his prolific repertoire of more than 17 projects available for streaming across platforms.
On the penultimate track of the EP, “Perfect 7,” Van Gogh raps, “Went to the world first, then I grabbed Charlotte…”
Citing Charlotte’s infamous inability to recognize its own artistic talent, Van Gogh remains dedicated to elevating his craft in this city. “I can’t help it. It’s like a beautiful girl. I know she scratched my car. I know she’s doing wrong, spending all my money. But I just still love her. That’s just all it is.”
The EP is laced with references to the Queen City, with “Perfect 7” keeping the top spot of the fictional radio countdown for 704 weeks straight. DJ Dexter Dynamite weaves local references throughout his inter-track narration, saying that he’s going to get a Bo-Berry biscuit after “10:30 @ Titan” and memorializing the long-gone Eastland Mall after “Foreign Money.”
Charlotte hip-hop staples like Southside Gauxst (aka Gauxstman) and Champagne from the On the Rocks podcast punctuate the call-ins between songs.
The second commercial break is lifted from a legendary spot by “Rev. Rob,” the bizarre evangelical character that showed up in radio and television commercials for west Charlotte’s Apple Auto Sales in the 1990s (You may remember Rev. Rob’s tagline, “I’m gonna HEAL your credit!).
This sense of hyperlocality, combined with the dense lyricism, anachronistic format and relatively inconvenient streaming process, eschews almost every sense of market logic in today’s music industry. But VVG says he’s already getting some of the best reactions to the project that he’s received in his career.
Initially, it was a slow burn, with folks taking a few weeks to really commit to listening to the EP. But after that initial period, plenty of love started to roll in online.
“[It’s been] a great response,” he said. “Like, I’ve gotten more paragraphs for this project than anything I’ve ever gotten … One dude posted, ‘Man, they don’t even deserve this. Like, giving this out, they don’t even deserve this.’ So, the people that caught it; it’s exactly the response I wanted.”
Soon, VVG will build on the momentum by releasing a limited number of tape versions of the project, with a B-side of the “Fat Four at Four” containing four bonus freestyles with DJ Potato Salad.
Beyond that, he’s already begun teasing his next full-length album, hinting toward its title in the first commercial in the EP, an AI-composed ad for a fictional live VVG show. The album, to be released in the new year, will extend many of the themes explored on the EP with a sharper, more focused conceptual center.
Eventually, he said he would like to explore the radio format in a full-length LP.
In the meantime, we have the freewheeling lyricism of Top9@8 to savor. While radio may be dead or dying, VVG reminds us not only of the power of nostalgia but of the infinite creativity of hip-hop.
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At its best, the culture takes the resonances of the past and massages them into the contours of our present. Rather than a simple lament about a bygone era, VVG resurrects the power that had us fighting through static and broken radio nobs to hear the newest heat through tinny speakers.
By simply not complying with the boundaries of the present industry, VVG continues a long and storied hip-hop practice of reconstituting what was into what is on Power 9@8.
