Vibbar’s New Mission

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In today’s complex musical landscape—shaped by the dynamics of the post-digital era and enriched by platforms such as X and TikTok—we see a remarkable evolution in how music is created and shared. Here in the UK, there is also a current resurgence of crews and collectives seeping through the cultural concrete they came from, returning to the community-focused roots that have helped shape its first birth through a number of genres. One of those worthy collectives is London’s Vibbar (“vibe” in Swedish), a multi-disciplinary outfit aiming to use their rapping, A&R skills and their penchant for genre-blending to bridge the gap between older and newer generations.

Birthed in 2015 during a performance by Joel Baker, beloved content creators and rappers Poet and Jordy observed a striking phenomenon: audience members were so engrossed in their own conversations that they completely disregarded the artist on stage. This moment sparked a crucial realisation, and Poet came up with the idea to form a new collective. A number of singles and EPs later, Vibbar has just released their new project, Gyal Thoughts, featuring rising stars Victoria Jane, Naima, Abbi Normal and Deyah.

The 8-track set builds on the intricate themes explored in their 2022-released project, Guy Thoughts Night, offering a renewed perspective that is often overlooked in society, telling the story from a woman’s perspective with women also at the forefront of the rollout. We sat down with two Vibbar members—Poet and TJ 2 Percent—to discuss Gyal Thoughts, why they love UK garage so much, and how they want their next phase to be one where they put new talent in the limelight instead of themselves.

COMPLEX: How did Vibbar start?

Poet:

It started with me phoning TJ 2 Percent and telling him I wanted to make a specific type of sound. I only knew where the start of that journey was, and I wanted to take old garage songs and see what they would sound like today. “Summer Of Love” by Lonyo was the first song I had, and then “Flowers” [by Sweet Female Attitude] was the second song. But that's all I had, and I just knew the only person who knew me well enough to know what that sound would sound like, as an experience, as a community, was TJ 2 Percent. I remember giving TJ the Lonyo song and saying, “Yo, I think this would be sick as a sample,” but I’m not a producer in that way; I know maybe certain things I want to take out of it, but the executive producer who knows everything is him. So when I gave it to him, and he made the “Summer Of Love” song for Vibbar—our first-ever song—the vibe was created.

TJ 2 Percent: To echo that, Poet is a community man who knows everyone. He’s called everyone to the studio; some people aren’t even musicians—it was just to chill. But it was turning that energy in that session into a soundtrack, hence you see the initial music video of everyone going wild. We only planned for it to be a night; we didn’t expect it to go on longer than that [laughs].

I’m curious about why you guys decided to name the collective Vibbar. Is there any specific reason why?

TJ 2 Percent:

The name Vibbar wasn’t around then, but it was like, “Let’s call it a night of vibes”, and we had this experience with Swedish girls.

Poet: To be fair, it’s probably my fault. We’re very London-based, but I’ve always loved exotic kinds of women, and I blame the ‘90s era of hip-hop for that. One time, we were at this dance and I met these Swedish girls—they were super cool and attractive, and they had a different perspective on things. It was the first time I met attractive women in London who didn’t care about their appearance. There were many of them, and it was just a vibe. That was in 2012, and the vibe was so strong… Let’s just say, that’s how I got my kids today.

In the early ‘90s, there was a surge in hip-hop crews, and now we’re seeing a rise in collectives in music. What do you think the difference between those two things are?

Poet:

I think they’re the same things, really. I think, sometimes, we try to be too introspective and try to be too different—it’s just a group of people together that have a dream working forward. The truth of the matter is, you’ve all got to be on the same page, or at least be in the same book because—without going into too much detail—that’s been the one hindrance I would say I’ve had moving forward in situations, where I believe me and someone are in the same place, for the same reason, but we’re actually not. The whole collective thing only works if you recognise yourself as family. Scribz Riley is my cousin, in real life, and the most important thing is that we’re trying to go in the same direction.

TJ 2 Percent: To add to that, I believe it’s all the same. Everyone is Vibbar: we’ve had Poet’s sons on tracks—they had a long outro—so anything goes; we’ve had Maya Jama involved in stuff, we’ve had Big Narstie involved in stuff and everyone was reaching out. For me, crews and collectives are the same thing but what I will say is different over here is we have more of a tribe or community mentality, just as long as you understand the vibe.

Earlier, we talked about UK garage and how much you guys want to bring a new version of it to the scene. Tell me more about that.

TJ 2 Percent: Vibbar is very collective in our sound, so garage was the initial conversation sonically—it was the initial premise. Our ethos is always taking things back to the origins of genres that we stem from, most of which is based around sampling. We basically like to sample whatever floats our boats. Our initial intention was to sample stuff made in the UK, so UKG right through to other Black British genres. We love music, so we’re always listening to whatever we feel is a vibe.

Poet: I like our music to be a mutual conversation between ourselves and the person who enjoys the vibe, but for an interest to be built, you have to show a certain level of creativity to give an opinion in the first place, especially when you start with something like UK garage. There are so many other genres and different spaces you can go with it too.

Vibbar’s new EP, Gyal Thoughts, follows your previous EP, Guy Thoughts Night, but shares the viewpoint from a woman’s perspective. What inspired this?

TJ 2 Percent: We’re always trying to talk to our female audience; it’s a big part of the consumer market so we’re always trying to speak to them. The concept of Guy Thoughts Night is that, on social media, you see a lot of women slating guys who do podcasts and we wanted to echo the whole vibe that guys would bring and give you that immersive feeling in the music. Then with Gyal Thoughts, we wanted to be like: how do girls feel when they see you guys on podcasts talking about their relationships, or just talking in general? How do we get that rebuttal from a lady, or not even a rebuttal per se, just a female's perspective?

Poet: I think TJ deserves a lot of credit for the way in which it was executive-produced—it was ridiculous. For us to get to a point in our journey where, musically, it’s not just song after song and there is actually a world that you step into once you press play, that made me feel happy and the reason we’re happy to get to that place is because it’s the start of a new journey and the fact that there is a running theme and story for a four-track EP shows the attention to detail that we’re trying to do here at Vibbar.

Aside from the music, how was the broader creative output Vibbar pursued for this project as a collective?

Poet:

It’s not just a four-track EP. There’s a video that comes off the back of it. In the music video, the storyline is TJ talking about my sister stealing her boyfriend’s bank card. And then, in real life, part of our promotion was that we got a girl who was more or less my sister and we put some money down in a tattoo shop where we did an advert of her stealing her boyfriend's bank card. Then we paid for free tattoos for all the girls in North London. Girls lined up for hours, there were a lot of tattoos getting done for free, and that’s off of one skit video off of our EP.

TJ 2 Percent: The reason why we decided to be super creative with the video concept and promotion is because I just feel like music is a narrative, and I love that process. I love when you make audio sound visual, where you’re able to visualise what you’re hearing. I love the fact that everyone’s gonna hear something and have their different take or perspective on it, just because we can all visualise it. So it’s taking that thought and magnifying that. Instead of just making these four tracks, let’s make them immersive.

What was the most challenging moment Vibbar, as a collective, had to take in order to have the most authentic artistry?

Poet:

I think the San Junipero project had to happen, and the reason I say that is because there was a lot happening in front of the house and out of office. The things that myself, TJ, Scribz and a lot of the others experienced in our personal lives, we were very honest about on that project. But there were also a lot of bad things happening within Vibbar as well, which was kind of upsetting to see because we're a group of friends. So we had to regroup and really think about what we’re doing in order to move forward as giving up was not an option. Once it all came to light, you had an option to carry on or give up, and you’d be carrying on with the information that you now have, which means that you probably ain’t gonna have any situations like this again. Now we’re here talking to Complex UK today!

What can your listeners expect from Vibbar as we move into 2025?

Poet:

More of understanding our audience—it’s so crucial and important. Even if it’s 100 people, cherish those 100 people. That’s 100 different avenues of information. They’ve watched, they’ve listened, and they’ve come back to us; not because someone else has told them to, but because they’re interested in what we’re putting out there. That is so important, man. That’s what I like about first projects and just that adolescence: you’re going to grow with your fans and get more honest opinions than you would do when all the noise comes in... Vibbar’s only making one album and then we’re done.

Why is that?

TJ 2 Percent:

You get to a time and place where you need to live more in order to convey what you really want to say, and it’s about leaving people with the framework of what we were doing the whole time. We’ll still be pushing new artists, such as Abbi Normal, who is on the Gyal Thoughts project. We want to put energy into her and newer talent. You’ll probably see us still working through Poet’s solo projects, too, but Vibbar will be more like a lifestyle brand that allows things to be the entities that they are.

Poet: There are a lot of people who live in the season that we live in, and I think that Vibbar’s new aim is to become a platform that speaks to alternative voices within music. All I’ll say for now is stay tuned.

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