Yall up on Vel Nine? If you’ve been sleeping, it’s all good fam… I got you. Vel Nine is an artist from Baldwin Park, CA and she has been putting in work in the underground rap scene for a long time and now and she deserves your attention. She reminds me of when Jean Grae aka What What was popping in the 2000s and you ignored the fact that she was a female emcee and you just stood back and said, wow… this is a dope emcee at the core.
Before Vel Nine, she was Vel the Wonder and the first track I remember hearing from her was “Lisa Simpson” which dropped in 2019 on her album, La Sena Ave. The project was dope and I feel established Vel as an up and coming emcee to look out for in a Los Angeles underground hip hop scene that’s hard to cut through. But Vel caught ears with her hustle on the content tip, her pen with her lyricism, and the way she presented her brand as a whole.
The voice is really good and the flow is on point so to me, she has all of the ingredients to make for a marketable star in the rap scene but what does that even mean anymore. In 2025, it’s hard to just drop dope music and be seen and heard. There are so many dope emcees and producers that are consistent in releasing art that give back to the culture but fans actually vibing with the artist and checking for every release are far and few nowadays.
Vel should be huge… She has her cult following without a doubt but she should be talked about in the same realm as a Che Noir on the female emcee tip or even Coast Contra if we’re just talking on the underground rap side of the tracks. Regardless, she’s an emcee that you press rewind on.
I feel Vel Nine really leveled up when she started working with NugLife who to my ear, is one of the nicest artists on the production tip. Those two together on the NINA album from 2023 was really dope. NugLife’s beats are tip top and the engineering on the project is hella clean… Then you throw in Vel Nine over those beats and it was chemistry that was undeniable. You can’t listen to a track like “PHASES” and tell me it’s not an absolute smash that can’t be painted in the “hip hop” box as it just feels like so much more. It’s a beautiful track and 214K streams on Spotify is a damn shame… This track should be in the millions.
The whole NINA project is dope from beginning to end and is one you should have in rotations. It’s smooth and tracks like “ASK ALICE”, “FAVORITE PIECE”, “MY FATHER’S DAUGHTER” are way too dope for you to not have on your playlists. But off of that project, you just can’t mess with that intro track. The track sets the tone for the project and when the beat drops you know the show has officially started and both artists show the world that they are here to smash your Walkmans and Discmans with str8 heat. “NINA” is that track for me that perfectly captures the brilliance of Vel Nine and NugLife and while it’s only 1 minute and 20 seconds, it checks all of the boxes for me as a listener and a fan of good hip hop.
Vel stays active in the rap scene and she dropped a really good track with Bobby California earlier this year called, “A Letter to Myself” which also deserves your ear to hear that in 2025 she is still building her artistry gearing up to her next album drop.
There’s so much of the back catalog to peep as well and the features go hard as well.
Vel has a new album dropping this Summer called A BEAUTIFUL DAY TO DIE that I think is going to be dope AF. Give her a peep if you haven’t already and don’t sleep on some of the dope underground hip hop coming out of Cali. There’s a lot of it and if you find the time, I guarantee there are some emcees and producers you’ll be listening to on the daily.