NVSV and Jvggy Hendrix release their collaborative album.

Two young men used Pittsburgh as their hub, building themselves, letting experiences mold them, patiently studying, and only producing content when they felt ready to do so, aware of the times when art fell on deaf ears in the Steel City. Just like any creative person in a small town, the great migration to massive cultural hubs like New York City or Los Angeles called to them while they woke and while they slept. But the subjects, Jvggy (pronounced Jiggy) Hendrix and NVSV (pronounced NASA), never balked at their set up in The ‘Burgh. Both of them rappers, Jvggy from Swissvale nine miles from Downtown Pittsburgh and NVSV from Baltimore, Md., met at the studio space and music collective that NVSV partnered with in the west end of Pittsburgh— Library Collaborative. Jvggy “came in for some sessions and we’ve been tight ever since. Not on no funny type shit, but he’s my protégés. Dead ass. And he enjoys the same things in hip hop as I do. But he also teaches me what the kids are up to,” the senior NVSV said about his younger Jvggy.

NVSV and Jvggy bloomed their studio engineering relationship into frequent collaborators on each other’s records. By my count, they have eight songs together that we know about spread out across Soundcloud releases and digestible extended plays on Apple Music. Their styles mix well, especially over classic boom bap beats fit only for true emcees to conquer. They sound very much like the rap that currently emanates from the Griselda fellas out of Buffalo, N.Y. “Listening to West and Benny,” NVSV admits while he crushes his own version of the brown mafioso, speaking a cadence so gritty and intentional in the song “Deadstock,” which also features Jvggy. “Come from where the Stillers be. Live by where them killers be,” Hendrix went for his city.

During the duos gestation period, NVSV moved to Brooklyn in the back half of 2019. “NY influenced me from birth. The city is hip hop… I think the tone of my music now is a direct reflection of my life here in Brooklyn now. I don’t think I would have been able to achieve that same sound while living anywhere else,” he said to ITR over Instagram DM. Also answering the call to the Big Apple was Jvggy. “New York has given me an opportunity to be more myself,” he said, going onto mention how he resonates with sounds from Griselda too and “of course Mac Miller,” who you can certainly hear tones of in Jvggy’s “Dirty Tapes” volumes. Both rappers frame their own testimonies technically through a classic East Coast lyricism for a case study on rap, and their work together is so exciting once you recognize how they have masterfully leveraged the techniques mimicking gun sounds and bars over jazzy sonics like Griselda. Do yourself a favor. Listen to “DR BIRDS,” and then play “Sammy’s.”

Today, NVSV and Jvggy released an album together entitled “The Lords” invoking the street. “Gangs were created to protect its people from outside forces that were destroying or vandalizing the community. Often Gangs were met by rival gangs battling over those same streets. Order was created due to unity and street justice. NVSV and Jvggy Hendrix explore this lifestyle, its pros and its cons,” read the album description on Bandcamp. Skits from the 1974 film “The Education of Sonny Carson” filter throughout their album too, emphasizing a “unified black culture,” Jvggy wrote proudly. Until media owned by white people misunderstood and “created negative preconceived notions about” these organized groups like the Black Panther Party, calling them gangs and police dispersed them with fatal bullets. Importantly, NVSV DM’d me Bobby Seale’s speech where he reiterated Huey P. Newton’s basic 10 Point Program of The Black Panther Party. All Black people have ever fought for is the practical defense of their human rights. We have to do that in the face of oppression from white people every day all the time— housing, education, healthcare, workforce, politics, law.

“Many of these ideas aren’t new or revolutionary ideas. We just have to take action,” NVSV finished.