Sound Doctrine » Vv Pete

Vv Pete – Frauds

Nov

posted by tommy

In 2020 the don Hau Latukefu showed me this clip of a teenage artist from Mr Druitt called Vv Pete. She’s sat in front of OneFour among others, spitting with total confidence having never formally released a record and commanding the space from nothing but an office chair. Fast forward two years and she drops her first single, a bouncy club record called Bussit. I gave that one a little four and a half star moment of triple j Unearthed (digital website, you gotta check it out).

That was June, this is November and now a nineteen year old Vv Pete has gone and offered up one of my favourite Australia rap releases of 2022. It’s called Frauds and in a nice little full-circle moment, you’ll hear that it’s largely the same song she performed in that office chair back in 2020. The evolution of it sees her flesh the record out more fully and rope in none other than Cassius Select on production duties which is… inspired. If the name’s familiar it’s because he’s been a staple of experimental electronic music in Australia for well over a decade, harkening back to one of his first projects Guerre which funnily enough, I wrote about around 10 years ago now. He was also part of iconic Sydney trio Black Vanilla around that time too, worth a little snoop if you never caught ‘em. The track and video is holistically surrounded by great people. Co-production by Trackwork record label founder UTILITY, additional mixing and production by T.Morimoto (another artist I wrote about under a different name many moons ago) and music video design by Russell Fitzgibbon (aka Skeleten / formerly of FISHING)

The partnership between rapper and producer here is so interesting because you can hear so much of both identities in the track while neither feel compromised. If you’re a hip-hop A&R out there rn, take notes, because this is a key example of how you don’t have to run the same beat track that every other next-up rapper is running on to make an impact. A week ago FBi gave the Sudanese icon their SMAC award for ‘Next Big Thing’ and you know what? Fairs. The hook on this record is immaculate and I can see why they opted to lean into it so hard in the chorus between her supremely laid-back verses. A proper favourite here.