Vic Sage on His Creative Process; Hints at New Record

A few months ago Vic Sage chatted with Rapzilla about being named a Freshmen, his project Low Key with FVMELESS, his debut, and his creative process. He also gave a little snippet on what’s to come next.

*This interview was done in March and pushed back for a variety of reasons. Some of the info has been updated.

“I’m just a college student from Nebraska,” said Sage. “I’m a believer with a lot of different values, especially in music. I’m a normal dude who tries to connect with as many people as I can and glorify God as well as just building friendships and relationships with people.”

Very quickly and easily, Vic Sage summed himself up humbly. What he didn’t mention is, he’s a bar spitter that has mastered the technical aspects of rapping while still being faithful to the trap/new school sound of music now. His ability to create substance in a genre that is often substanceless is top notch.

For him, his diversity lies in the way he tackles life and faith in his music.

“I think people who do just ‘Jesus, Jesus, Jesus’ all God uber Christian music, that’s completely and authentically them. That’s dope and I love that about those people,” he said. “But that’s not me. If I did that it would be inauthentic as a human being, a creative, and an artist.”

Sage likened it to mainstream rappers who rap about the strip club and blowing money all day. “I don’t know anyone who is going to the club 3x a day and there isn’t anyone who spends all day in church and is 100% perfect.”

He continued, “It can get really redundant. I want to be able to talk about God and some of the real stuff going on in my life. Ultimately, I want to make good clean, catchy music, that everyone can vibe to.”

Earlier this year, Sage was named to the Rapzilla.com 2018 Freshmen Class. He said he couldn’t believe how much he was tagged in the nominations. “It was dope. I’ve been following it for a few years,” he shared. “I’ve been sorta aiming for it but I didn’t think I’d necessarily fit in.”

One of the key things besides his dope music was his success of Spotify.

At the time, his tracks were getting a lot of placement on playlists. At this moment he has over 20,000 monthly listeners and roughly one million plays. The potential to see where he’d wind up was there for everyone to see.

“I still don’t feel like I know everything, but if I can get the initial few listens and playlist placements, then the snowball just keeps rolling and pushing to different people I don’t even know about, said the rapper. 

He even said that if he wanted to, he could quit his day job and live modestly off of streaming. Almost five months later, and he’s probably in a better spot now. However, he is choosing to grind it out to save up money for the future.

And before we get to his future, let’s talk about the music of the past…

In 2017 he dropped his debut project Long Days Longer NightsThe 8-track album packs quite a punch up and down.

“I had just come back from Australia,” he explained. “I lived there for six months on a study abroad thing. I made a lot of music when I was down there. This was me figuring out which way I wanted to go and figuring out which styles worked best. When I got back, I had a month to go before I went back to work. I started grinding on this project and putting them in this stash.”

From there he reached out to artists such as Joey Vantes and YourWelcome Shon. Eventually, they’d appear on his song “Grind.” 

Listen to Vic Sage Below:

“I kept making new songs until I had about 15-20 and got a core group of people that I trust to help me cut it down to eight. I dropped that eight as my debut.”

Sage said the songs that were cut will not be released. He was just trying to find himself and his style.

“I took the eight that fit the best and made a day-night scenario,” he revealed. “The Darker tracks were at the beginning where my voice was deeper and the beats were more complex.” 

“Then it was more chill and vibey toward the end.”

In March, Sage would release another project – Low Key. This was birthed out of a friendship with fellow Freshmen FVMELESS. He’s a producer, also from Nebraska, he found his way to Omaha.

“I DM’d him almost two-years ago. We started talking and hanging out,” Sage said. “Originally, we wanted it to be longer and conceptual. We’ve made so much music and random singles, but these felt distinctly ours… The song structures are super odd and it’s just low key.”

The pair also wanted to have something to present themselves as Freshmen with. 

Watch Vic Sage and FVMELESS Below:

Now moving forward, the 23-year-old rapper has another project on his mind.

“I have a concept and an idea that I don’t think people are ready for. I want to be super conceptual and really revealing about me as a person. I don’t feel like I have a ton of music on how I see the world and process things and make art in general. I want to do it, but I don’t want to drop it too early where people may not know what I’m talking about or take it out of context.”

That’s what he initially told Rapzilla.com back in March. Now it’s August, and his tune has changed.

“I haven’t revealed anything on purpose so far but I’ll say I do have a solo record in the works and it is much more deep, revealing, and hopefully relatable and I’m hoping people will be able to accept the person that I am through this upcoming art,” he updated us with. 

Until that project drops, Sage has continued to make collaborative magic with FVMELESS. He has also linked up with J. Crum and T-Vision who are all trying to make it out of Nebraska together.

“It’s amazing to meet new people and one of my favorite parts of this whole experience is connecting with dope visionaries,” he said. “And I’m open to collaborating with anybody I think is dope.”

Stay tuned, Vic Sage undoubtedly has more heat coming, and Rapzilla.com will have it. 

Justin Sarachik
Justin Sarachik
Justin is the Editor-in-Chief of Rapzilla.com. He has been a journalist for over a decade and has written or edited for Relevant, Christian Post, BREATHEcast, CCM, Broken Records Magazine, & more. He's written over 10,000 articles, done over 1,000 interviews, and is in post-production for documentaries on Danny "D-Boy" Rodriguez & Mario "Machete" Perez. He's the project manager of the upcoming video game Run the Court and of the media brand Crimefaces. Justin likes to work with indie artists to develop their brands & marketing strategies. Catch him interviewing artists on Survival of the Artist Podcast & creating videos on his social media channels.
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