VINSON
Knowledge of Self
WICHITA
In a 2018 essay speaking on Black identity in the US, philosopher Kristie Dotson rejects the desire to be “just American,” arguing that this want to abstract away everything but American identity is the final stage of settler colonialism—the completion of a centuries-long process of violence, alienation, and forced assimilation. “I will be Black,” she deftly states. “A reminder of the descendants of slavery who facilitated the twilight of this setter colonial society.” On his Knowledge of Self EP, VINSON takes up the mantle of Dotson’s radical defiance, exploring what it means to love and resist over four quick-hit tracks enveloped by marijuana smoke.
Inheriting the sonic will of 2023’s debut record SoftSweetRadical, and following a quick detour paying homage to Detroit techno with his Break a Sweat EP, Knowledge of Self sees VINSON lean into his hip-hop roots. “Player and a Lover” opens the EP with a drum fill as thick as the air at an underground club. A shimmer of synths follows, mimicking the first hit of the fresh doobie VINSON just rolled as the Detroit native begins to croon out reflections on love and culture. On “Vine Loops” he ruminates on himself and the condition of the country he finds himself in. Backed by a beat as fluid as the marine visuals that accompany it, VINSON denounces cops one moment then questions his reserved personage the next. Lamentations on the emotional repression he was forced to practice as a child are followed by questions to God about the dissonance between his omniscience and chattel slavery. It’s a somber reflection of tragedy and self, with VINSON laying bare the emotions he carries with him as a Black man born and raised in the US.
Named for the schooner liberated by its enslaved Mende captives in the early 1800s, “Amistad” distills VINSON’s Afro-abstractionism amidst a collage of piano refrains, cutting hi hats, and the occasional grounding snare. Mourning the generational trauma that the US has instilled through centuries of anti-Black subordination and violent repression, the Detroiter questions if revolution on the scale of La Amistad will ever occur here. He enlists the help of fellow Midwesterner Open Mike Eagle, who reflects on his grandmother’s upbringing before concluding that humans will never be unified. The repeated refrains of “Cape Town to Cape Verde” and “Haiti to Alabama” affirm the message: VINSON and OME are for the liberation and love of the whole diaspora.
“My identity forces your memory to be longer than your lifespan,” Dotson writes, “[and] helps to keep the settler colonial machinations of this society in focus.” Her insistence on identifying as Black is intertwined with the knowledge of self that VINSON echoes throughout the EP. The fifth element of hip-hop is knowledge—both of the culture and the resistance that it was born out of. VINSON is determined to pay homage while he sifts through his self, never forgetting the importance knowledge has when it comes to liberation and love. From La Amistad to Marvin Gaye to Aaliyah, VINSON has love for all those who paved the way, and is determined to keep his memory longer than his lifespan.
