The Van Buren movement comes from Brockton—just a half-hour south of Boston. In 2014, the New England rap collective of Luke Bar$, SAINT LYOR, FELIX!, Jiles, Andrew Regis, Meech BOLD, and Invada became official. The formation was a gathering of childhood friends, high school classmates, and overlapping connections. Some emcees double as producers, with the crew’s Kiron Akil behind the boards with engineer R Louie. The ensemble of rappers, fashion designers, videographers, producers, photographers, engineers, and visual artists, including merch coordinator Moses Besong and creative consultants Shelby Narcisse and E., came together with plans to make it on their terms. Their name is a nod to an unlikely but fearsome street gang in a later Seinfeld episode.
Since the crew’s inception, Van Buren Records has gone to work. They have a creative enclave in neighboring Plainville, Massachusetts. With space to make art and work together, the prolific outfit cultivated a fanbase by dropping over 15 solo releases since 2019. However, 2021 has proven to be a breakout year for Van Buren Records. Amid those individual pursuits, the collective has come together for April’s Bad For Press. Luke Bar$, SAINT LYOR, LORD FENIX!, and Jiles’ collaborative video single “MEDIC” has achieved over 200,000 streams, with recent support from Ebro Darden’s Apple Music Show. The group’s videos are just as captivating as their music, evident in “BRAINDEAD.”NPR touted Bad For Press among their running best of ‘21 album list, while publications including Lyrical Lemonade, Pigeons & Planes, and UPROXX have been ardent supporters. Meanwhile, producer/DJ Mackwop, of another tight-knit crew, TDE, leveraged his platform to the Van Buren Boys after playing the “Gangbanger Remix” on Twitch. “CASH RULES” follows the album with new music and suggests that the group shows no signs of slowing down. Like the characters that inspired the crew’s name, when it comes to the spotlight, Van Buren Records continue to treat it as theirs for the taking.
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© 2021, Seth "Digital Crates" Barmash. All rights reserved.
