Grace and Force
By Hailey Stangebye
Photos courtesy of Matthew Vaughn
If he were an animal, Matthew Vaughn says he’d be a snake.
That’s because he can create melodies that glide elegantly through themes of heartbreak and death. Then, in the next track, he can write a verse that bites down with a ruthless edge. A snake represents the practiced union of grace and force.
Practice is a crucial component of the equation. He didn’t master his voice and style overnight.
“I started writing poetry at a very young age, like elementary,” Matthew says. “My uncle wrote poetry a lot. He would just walk around the house and recite it and I thought what he could do with words was super cool. So I started writing and continued to write throughout middle school and high school.”
Poetry was his first passion. Taking after his uncle, Matthew would write poem after poem, filling up notebooks with the written word. Things changed, though, his freshman year of high school.
“I had gotten one of my journals stolen, and so I was just really upset about that,” Matthew says. “Then, my oldest brother passed away and I just didn’t feel any motivation to do poetry. Over the summer, I still wanted to write, but I didn’t want to write poetry. So I started rapping.”
“Then, my oldest brother passed away and I just didn’t feel any motivation to do poetry. Over the summer, I still wanted to write, but I didn’t want to write poetry. So I started rapping.”
That summer between freshman and sophomore year in high school, Matthew started recording his tracks. Looking back, he describes those early recordings as disturbing; those songs show how he processed every complex emotion he encountered after losing so much.
When he recorded that first song, he didn’t have any fancy equipment.
“I started by blasting the music out of the computer speakers, and then recording the verse with the music in the background on my sister’s cellphone,” Matthew says. “Then I would upload those tracks to my SoundCloud. I still have a few of them.”
Over the next few years, Matthew honed his craft and practiced with a rap group. Once the group disbanded, though, he decided to take a leap of faith and perform at his first open mic. Until then, he had never performed anything live.
“I was shaking and everything and afraid of everything. I went on stage with sunglasses on because I didn’t want to look at the crowd, and it was just very, very scary,” Matthew says. “But I fell in love with performing, and so I started writing more spoken word. It was pretty much a wrap after that because I fell in love with the expression and the connection to people that I could have. Now I’m here.”
“I was shaking and everything and afraid of everything. I went on stage with sunglasses on because I didn’t want to look at the crowd, and it was just very, very scary.”
So where is “here?” It’s a place and time where Matthew proudly introduces himself as an artist. That’s because the term “rapper” doesn’t cover half of his creative endeavors.
“Yes, I can rap. Yes, I can do poetry — write it and perform it — but I also like to take pictures, I also like to sing (I’m in the gospel choir at my university), I also like to do a little bit of graphic design,” Matthew says. “I like to introduce myself as an artist because I feel like I can do a lot of things. Even dancing.”
Currently, Matthew is a published author of Intentional Scribbles and a student at Wilberforce University majoring in sociology. He says he owes a great deal of his success to support from Underdog Academy and his friends at Sun Tribe — or, as he describes the tight-knit group: “Those people in your life that give you motivation and hope for the future of humanity.”
“My purpose in life is to create, and I literally don’t know how to go about my life without doing it. It’s my form of breathing,” Matthew says. “My way of breathing is through art and creation. That’s my way of understanding and describing things.”
“My purpose in life is to create, and I literally don’t know how to go about my life without doing it. It’s my form of breathing.”
Matthew Vaughn’s Work
