When it comes to talent, Vega Monster is no stranger. The versatility of the all-around artist from Oxnard, CA shines through, as he is easily one of the most intelligent and talented people I’ve ever met. The self described advocate of all things psychedelic, or delic head as he would say, comes across as a bit Timothy Leary meets B-Real. When talking about his creative energy and influences it seems to all fuse together as if he sees and hears life as a massive orchestration of interconnectedness. “It’s been a journey” says the monster when asked to comment on his beginnings. Here are a few excerpts from a small interview conducted by the Audio Fuzz team.
Where does the name Vega Monster come from?
“The name Vega was actually given to me by my older homie. One of my OG’s. Up until that point I had been rockin’ my initials, which were J.A.V, as my MC name. The homie got the message from beyond. Warped mind shit. It was kinda weird at first because cats wanna automatically connect it to the Street Fighter character. None of that though. I started researching the word and it’s place in language. A majority of its roots can be traced back to the celestial body near the Sirius star system. It resides in the constellation known as Lyra the Harp. It’s the 5th brightest star visible from Earth in the night sky. V is also the Roman numeral for five and five so happens to be my life path number in numerology. The wrath of the math, ya know? Ya… I’m a fuckin’ weirdo. Anyhow, the Vega science grew on me. After a while I added Monster to differentiate from anyone else trying to rock the name”.
Have you ever been in a group or have you always been solo?
“I’m a Gemini, so I’m kind of all over the place. I’m an all around artist. I write lyrics, rap, make beats, draw, and paint. Anything art, I’m into. Shit, I even wanna get into sculpting but I don’t got no money to get a kiln at the moment, so I’m chillin’ on that. As far as music though, I been writing rhymes ever since I was about eight years old. At some point I started recording myself in my room on the solo tip. Crazy style. Recording on my little shelf system, so my voice would come out of one speaker and the beat out of another speaker. About the same time I started high school. You know… new place… new people. In one class I happened to sit next to this cat that so happened to be a DJ. We connected through our love for Hip-Hop and became friends. He would spin instrumentals from 12 inches and I would rock my raps on ’em. At some point I came up with the name DJ Aftershock, which he later shortened to J-Shock. He ended up getting a MPC and making beats. This was huge cuz now I had beats to call my own rather than jackin’. We soon formed a little collective that we called Oxidental Records. We even released a 10 inch vinyl called Oxidentalism through a small record company in the U.K. Super small time but to us we might as well had been famous at that time (he laughs). Just like everything else though our collective eventually fell apart and I started doing my own thing as well as a couple group efforts under the names Grand Crue and AuxIlAree”.
How do drugs influence your music?
“I’m a psychedelic head and have been ever since I discovered the mind expanding properties of certain organic substances in my late teens. When you hear this new project, as a whole, the one I’m calling “The Most High” it hits like an acid trip. It’s encouraging people to expand their minds. I’m telling ’em not to be scared to venture outside the box. Fuck the box. Everything is consciousness and America’s war on drugs is really a war on just that… consciousness”.
Ryan Glover is a contributing writer for https://www.audiofuzz.com. Follow him on Twitter @RyanDavisGlover, “Like” him on Facebook and add him to your google network.