Features : Vortex Flo continues his renaissance story with new hip-hop track “August 2008”

Vortex Flo’s “August 2008” is the fifth installment of his transition from rapping in Hebrew to rapping in English.

It is also the next-to-last single he will release before dropping the 16-track album this summer, which is a rap documentary of his personal renaissance of rap, Rapaissance.

But, before we get the rebirth, there is Vortex Flo’s birth into rap, “August 2008.”

“Before August 2008, I was a kid,” he said. “I was a teenager. I was thinking about becoming a rapper. Sometimes it crosses my mind, sometimes it slips out of my mind. You’re not really sure who you are. Before August 2008, that’s how I felt.”

It was October 2005 the first time
That I tried to write a song and couldn’t come with a rhyme
I watched a freestyle video of 2 rappers on stage
I rewrote their words, was in a lyrical cage

But August 2008 is “when it happened,” and the song is his origin story.

“I realized that’s who I am. It’s who I be, and that’s my destiny,” he said.

Vortex Flo raps out stories, and this one begins with his first faltering efforts leading up to his epiphany in 2008:

June 2006 my first show in front of school
My friends were making fun of me for trying to be cool

And from there he tells the story of watching videos on MTV, setting his goals, getting a “tingle” from his first single, his first appearance on music charts, all set to a suspenseful piano melody sustaining the beat, and piano and beat like a dream floating the rapper over the hard rocks of reality.

It is a product of the unique kind of storytelling he does, his straightforward style, and the varied melodies and instrumentation of his songs.

“I’m a creative person,” he said. “A lot of ideas for creating tons of songs and albums come to my head.”

Until 2022, when he released his first track in English, “Middle of the Ladder,” those songs were in Hebrew, including a 20-track album in 2019. “Middle of the Ladder” will also be on Rapaissance.

But rapping in Hebrew, in Israel, he said, is not as freewheeling as it is in English in the United States.

“When you rap in English, you can say whatever you feel like but in Hebrew, if you say obscene words or cussing, or talk about sex or drugs or stuff like that, they disqualify you on the spot, and that’s why I don’t like it.”

He does not use obscenity or sex or cursing just to use them, “but rapping is about telling you truth in a good or a bad sense. The hip-hop scene in Israel is just a short scene in an eight-hour movie.”

Another part to his move into English is the notion of renaissance. Rap, he said, has largely become an art that has a lot of things it is expected to have, such as synthesized instrumentation, a lot of talk about sex and drugs, violence and obscenity.

“Pretty much,” he said, “my artistry is I bring to the table something new, something that never comes across in hip-hop.”

The title track of the album, “Rapaissance,” tells that story. It is also the reasoning behind the title of the track and the album, a combination of rap with Renaissance, the great period artistic and cultural development in the 15^th and 16^th centuries.

The album cover is Da Vinci’s 15^th-century Vitruvian Man wearing a 21^st-century baseball cap and smoking a joint.

Part of his renaissance is the storytelling — he likes to get people “to the bottom of the message that I want to deliver.”

Another is the variety in his instrumentation. He uses synthesizers, but he uses a lot of other instruments as well.

“Middle of the Ladder” and “My Female Version,” for instance, have a lot of synthesizer, “you know, the usual hip-hop sound.” But the piano is also a feature, as in “August 2008,” and there’s strings, orchestral strains, Middle Eastern melodies, and rock.

Sometimes in the same track. “Almost Happy,” has very Middle Eastern flute melodies along with a quickstep drum beat and bass line and, here and there, touches of rock guitar.

“I think that if you use the same instrumentation all the time, it would be boring.”

It is all fascinating and hugely entertaining. If you get lot in picking out and following the various instrumental sounds, it is well worthwhile to listen again to pick up the story.

Or vice versa.

He will release one more track, “Human God,” before dropping the album. That song, he said, will be about being a kid and thinking adults and other people are infallible, like gods, and then, with more years, realizing that they, and himself, are merely human, making mistakes and having to overcome them to get to a better place.

As an artist, he naturally has ambitions to take his music and his career as far as he can and grow his fan base and there is the artistic desire to get his vision out.

“Basically, the idea behind every song, every track, every video and every cover art photo that I put out is that I want people to understand and feel in their hearts the messages I am trying to deliver.”

Dive into Vortex Flo and connect with him on all platforms for new music, videos, and social posts.

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