It was a friend who first suggested Oblivion (by yungvisionmusic on SoundCloud) to me. A few people posted about it before that, but I didn’t actually know it was made by a junior at Culver High. If I’m being honest, I didn’t have high expectations: I’ve heard some music from people I know from school, and most of it is pretty disheartening. You can imagine my surprise, then, when I heard “Outta My Mind”, the first track on the album. It’s melodic, nuanced, thoughtful and, most importantly, doesn’t sound like garbage. It’s professionally produced and recorded, the singing is beautiful, and the rapping (which is a featured artist in this song) is skillful.
Obviously, whoever made this knew what they were doing. So, I listened to the whole album (which is a little under half an hour long and retains the good qualities of the first song), and I decided that I wanted to interview Vision, whose real name is Hebrew Richardson. A transcript of the interview follows:
So, how long have you been making music, and what inspired you to first start doing it?
I’ve been making music for about six years, now. It was actually a person that inspired me- it was a girl that I liked (laughs). I was like, “Man, maybe if I start doing music, maybe she’ll like me.” She ended up not liking me at all (laughter). I’m still friends with her, though.
How’d you start out making music, and how do you think you got from where you started to where you are right now? Or, do you think you started where you are?
Oh, no, man. When I first started out, I remember, I was garbage. My songs were, like, horrible. And I was making beats more, rather than singing, ‘cause I was like, “My singing’s not that good, but I guess I can just make beats for a little bit,” so I was just making beats and writing, and I was singing a little bit. And, as the years have gone by, I’ve learned more, by, like, using YouTube and talking to my friends. I met my friend Sebastian, and he just, like, blew me out of the water. Sebastian is like, “Yeah, your beats are good. I make beats too.” And I hear his beats, and I’m like, “Whoa.”
When’d you first have the idea of creating a project- you know, what caused you to want to compress your thoughts and feelings into a body of work?
When I first met Sebastian, probably. ‘Cause I was like, “Okay, this is for real now.” I remember the first time I went to the studio and got into the booth, I was like, “Wait. This is real, this is where I wanna be; I belong here.” Sebastian had me featured on something, and he likes- he really likes my voice, and I just thought, “I gotta come out with a project. I really have to, like, show him what I have, and show other people what I can do.” And, that’s when I really started taking my music seriously, and that’s when I chose the name “Vision”.
So, a vision for the future, a vision for your music?
Yeah, exactly.
Building off of that, what are your plans for the future? Do you want to keep making music as a hobby, or do you want to pursue a career in this?
Music is my career and it is the way to go. Like, I could do a whole bunch of other stuff, but music is something that really shows who I am, and it’s definitely what I want do in the future.
Yeah, that’s pretty much it. Again, thanks for talking to me.
Awesome.