Artist Profile: Vavrix Owens
Vavrix Owens, the artist from Phoenix, Arizona, discovered his passion for music in the wake of a personal tragedy and, in doing so, found an avenue through which to broadcast a message of wisdom to the world, etching out his personal learnings across the driving rhythms and densely-packed rhymes of his tracks.
As a child, Owens grew up surrounded by the classics of the 50s and 60s; artists like James Brown, B.B. King, and Aretha Franklin graced the walls of his childhood home. Yet, growing up, being a musician was not something that had ever occurred to him as a possibility, let alone a focused ambition.
For much of his life, his sole focus was on athletics. As a talented young football player, Owens went to Eastern New Mexico University on a full scholarship. Yet, after suffering his second spinal injury in the span of just a couple years, he was forced to medically retire from football, leaving a void in his life that he needed desperately to fill.
As a high schooler, Owens had fallen in love with the rhymes of artists like J. Cole, Mac Miller, Nipsey Hussle, and Andre 3000, and, shortly after his injury, he began experimenting with writing his own lyrics. In the course of this experimentation, the COVID-19 Pandemic struck, and Owens was stuck at school.
With the help of a friend, he began recording his rhymes over Youtube beats, and he quickly knew that his new passion had found him.
His first project, Over Thinking, was born from this initial burst of artistry, representing his process of coping with a series of life-changing events.
“The title [Over Thinking] is fitting in itself. During that whole phase of me being uncertain if I'm going to be able to recover from this spinal injury and come back and play football…I had to learn how to deal with the anxieties, the uncertainty, the hard times and the dark moments through music… it's a healing mechanism and that's exactly what it was for me.”
Recorded partially in New Mexico and partially back home in Arizona, the tracks on Over Thinking are among the first tracks that Owens recorded. Yet, there is a remarkable amount of raw talent present across the project’s 30-minute runtime. From the gospel-soaked melodies of “New Wave” to the boom-bap rhythms of “Life 7+6”, Owens’ drive is on full display from the earliest of his efforts.
“It was purely just raw, organic spirit, just ready to do something new to the fullest. It was fun. I still feel like that's some of the best writing I've done ever… I was creative because I was vulnerable as an artist… It was really all an experimental phase for me. I like to go with the flow, the intuition, the spirit, and it usually leads me correctly.”
His next album, Polarity Chase, showed both a refinement in his craft and in his understanding of the nuances of the music business. For the first time, he collaborated with other artists, enlisting numerous feature verses on the album, and his rhyme schemes showed more of the complexity that is the sign of an experienced artist.
Now, after taking a year-and-a-half hiatus from music in order to rebalance his personal life, Owens is ready to jump back into the game with a renewed passion, continuing to harness his remarkable journey in order to communicate his message.
“My message is to encourage individuals to seek knowledge and understanding of this world that they're living in in order to move closer towards God and to also understand the power within… I just want to share my story in hopes to either heal somebody else, inspire somebody else, motivate somebody else, encourage somebody else to seek God and find strength within.”
