Lil Heavn

Tione Jackson, “Nocturnal”

The first video off Tione Jackson’s Fame is woozy as hell, and the empty bottles in the bathtub only serve to emphasize the fact. Tione Jackson is a member of the Lawrence-based collective Vivid Zebra, and Fame is his latest album, a follow-up to June’s Tionezilla. I love what he’s doing, mixing vocodered R&B vocals over indie rock guitars, and though his lyrics run pretty grim (Don’t need anybody help/ I’ll hurt myself/ Don’t worry bout my health) I hope he sticks around. - Nick Spacek - The Pitch (Kansas City)

Tione’s energy makes him a standout performer. His sound is lively, quintessential hip-hop. From the beginning of his set, his volume and motion made him uniquely popular with the crowd. Tione performs with a spackling of backup instrumentalists, soundboard operators, and others. His talent and raw energy electrified this crowd from on stage, but the blistering excitement came when he jumped off the stage to dance and perform in with the audience. If that weren’t enough, Tione invited audience members up on stage to dance for his last song. Upbeat and clever lyrics meet expert crowd work to deliver a performance that moved him swiftly into finals. - Emma Miller and Kelsie Crable - KJHK Content Staff

With a quarter-century of Farmers’ Ball now in the books, the 25th annual KJHK battle of the bands had The Bottleneck shaking so hard that it’s cork almost popped off. While Kansas City rapper The Royal Chief may have come away wearing the silver anniversary crown, fellow finalists Tione, Chess Club, and Oxford Remedy all put up quite a fight Friday night.

The show was kicked off by Topeka native rapper Tione, who was joined on stage by fellow members of local artistic collective Vivid Zebra, and Toine certainly earned his stripes with an electric tone-setting performance. Tione delivered arguably the most diverse set of the night, ranging from moody trap/R&B fusions like the heartbreak ballad “Black Dragon”, to the bouncy synth-driven groove of “There She Go”, as well as serving a sonic adrenaline shot with the stereo-thumping “Hot 95”. Despite being the first performer of the night, Tione’s set was anything but a warm-up, as the fresh legs of the crowd were immediately put to work for every unrelenting second of his no holds barred performance. Proving himself to be a true man of the people, Tione cut right into the thick of the action, choosing to mosh alongside his raucous followers while not once breaking from his laser-focused performance. Fresh on the heels of The Tione Tape, Vol. 3 releasing earlier this month, Tione is building quite a well-rounded catalogue for himself and adding his natural stage presence to the equation it seems inevitable that his star will only rise exponentially moving forward. - David Castroblanco - KJHK 90.7 FM

A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO ECLECTIC LAWRENCE HIP-HOP COLLECTIVE VIVID ZEBRA
The Lawrence, Kansas music scene was different before Vivid Zebra came around. In the collective’s early days, a request to throw a show at the now-closed Jackpot Music Hall was met with the venue asking for a $500 fee and an owner mentioning how they “don’t like booking hip-hop acts.” Even at the relatively progressive Replay Lounge — despite having patched things up since — Vivid Zebra rapper Tione (Antione Jackson) was once temporarily banned for performing his anti-police track, “Fuck 12.”

I met up with six of the collective’s nine members at Alccalh’s (Alex Calhoun) humble ranch house on a quiet block of North Lawrence. It’s tough wrangling nine people into the same room no matter what you’re doing, but despite being at the top of their game creatively, the crew’s members have been collaborating in person less over the last couple years. “It’s just growing up shit,” Calhoun said.

The dip in productivity is only relative, however, since nearly all of the members lived in the same apartment building at the time of its inception, in the summer of 2014.

The members of Vivid Zebra were constantly crossing paths with each other at that time. Some had grown up together in Topeka. Rapper Ricky Roosevelt (Jarred Morris) met Alex Chanay in a hip-hop class at the University of Kansas. Others were simply connected by mutual friends. Tione first met Calhoun after knocking on his door after hearing that he made beats. These early days were full of late-night beatmaking sessions and hours of creative freestyling.



By 2015, the usual lineup began to solidify — producers Kemper (Robertson), Jonah P. (Baltsuka), and Aphat (Alex Williamson) had entered the fold — and a near-constant churn of singles and projects was being posted on their SoundCloud and Bandcamp pages. Dig deep and you’ll find tracks like “Lancaster,” a cloudy, nocturnal instrumental collab from Aphat and Alccalh, or “Moe Than Me,” an emotive, Taco Bell-referencing Tione rap over a wavy, synth-driven Kemper beat.

As surreal as it seems now, their de facto coming-out party was an opening set at Post Malone’s 2016 show at the Granada. The group laughed talking about it — “That was the worst show we ever played!”, shouted the crew’s R&B crooner (Spencer) Raymond, remembering their common inexperience (as well as one jokester in the crowd shouting that he looked like a member of Mumford & Sons). Calhoun noted that it’s still the largest crowd anyone in the collective has played to at once, but they all seem to rest assured knowing the work they’ve done since has been more impactful than that ill-fated performance. “That was definitely a huge growing experience,” Calhoun said.



The rest of 2016 was filled with early Vivid Zebra milestones, too. Raymond made the semifinals of KJHK’s Farmers’ Ball that April, beginning the ongoing streak of a member of the collective performing in it every year since (Tione is in this year’s show). That July marked the release of “Gucci Jefferson,” the first collaborative EP from Tione and Alccalh. The EP featured such Vivid Zebra classics as “Holupyah,” an irresistible piece of lo-fi bubblegum trap, and “Losing You” — a curiously upbeat song about heartbreak that’s also pleasantly reminiscent of Technotronic’s “Pump Up The Jam.”

The same day that “Holupyah” was recorded in Calhoun’s old living room, Ricky Roosevelt tracked “Cameras” there, which appeared on their first “Legacy" project. Set to a bouncy electronic track, Morris laid down critique of the performative aspects of Instagram and Snapchat posting. These songs represent two of Vivid Zebra’s many sides, some of which I’d wager the general public hasn’t even seen yet. This led me to ask the members if they felt any one quality made a piece of music uniquely Vivid Zebra.



“If you in Vivid Zebra,” Tione said slyly, the music you make is Vivid Zebra music, slicing my question with Occam’s razor. As I spent nearly two hours learning about the collective, it became clear how scattered many of their influences and motivations are (although they do share a mutual passion for Lil Uzi Vert and the Atlanta rap oddballs birthed by Awful Records). This might lead some to wonder what makes them want to share a name. Anyone familiar with their catalog knows their open-minded approach to making art is a shared value, but the real reason they team up is the strength they find in community.

Together, wielding their delightfully weird, fun and thoughtful multi-genre music, Vivid Zebra aims to break up the homogeneity they’d perceived in Lawrence’s music scene before they became a part of it.

“I feel like Lawrence embraced us a lot more than I expected it to,” Robertson said. “I remember when I moved here, everyone was doing that indie rock type of thing.”

Despite the “growing up shit,” the members of Vivid Zebra, with some of their young peers and Lawrence transplants, are still fighting to smash the scene’s barriers and bring the college town closer together. Whether you’re partying in the Eighth Street Taproom basement during a Kemper DJ set, grooving on the Replay’s dance floor during a tender new ballad from Raymond or Sunflower (Tori Searles), or even just jamming Ricky Roosevelt and Alccalh’s “Legacy, Vol. 2” in your car as you drive around campus, it’s not hard to tell that Vivid Zebra is slowly but surely changing the landscape of Lawrence music for the better.
You can find Vivid Zebra’s music on Bandcamp and SoundCloud, and find them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Tione will be at the KJHK Farmers’ Ball Semifinals at The Bottleneck on April 12; Ricky Roosevelt and Alccalh play at the Fuklyfe House Party (5823 Forest Ave, Kansas City) on April 13; and Raymond releases “Future Holds” at Replay Lounge on May 2. - Aaron Rhodes - a music journalist based in Kansas City, Missouri. He is the editor-in-chief of Shuttlecock Music Magazine and a frequent contributor to 90.9 The Bridge and The Pitch.

Tione - "Holupyah"
Tione and Alccalh of Lawrence hip-hop collective Vivid Zebra have teamed up for one of the college town's most quietly catchy tunes of the year. Its quick, simple, and mumbled hook is reminiscent of what stars like Lil Yachty are making hits out of, but Tione's take is several times more lowkey and lo-fi. "Holupyah" was made to tiptoe around your bedroom doing the Lil B cooking dance to. - Aaron Rhodes - Shuttlecock Magazine

Jonah P. - "Say My Name" (ft. Tione)
Lawrence, Kansas producer Jonah P. just released his debut EP "Mars." The EP is full of interesting electronic grooves, rap verses, and local collaborations. The final track on the release is a bit of a tribute to the classic Destiny's Child track "Say My Name." Jonah P.'s take includes vocal help from Tione of Lawrence collective Vivid Zebra. This updated version includes all the hazy synths a 2016 R&B fan could ask for. A key late night pick. - Aaron Rhodes - Shuttlecock Magazine

Vivid Zebra moves in a completely different vein. Blending trap leanings with pop RnB, the LFK hip hop collective makes songs that are rhythmic and filled with hooks. Whether Vivid Zebra raps about financial capital or social capital, the collective knows not only how to pen a line but how to deliver it. Constantly in the intersection between self-consciousness and swagger, Vivid Zebra is equally great streaming through headphones and pouring out a PA. Vivid Zebra again and again proves that hip hop is not dead in Kansas City and Lawrence.

This Friday‘s show starts at 6pm and is all ages. Shuttlecock Music Magazine always curates fantastic shows. Lawrence Invasion, featuring Young Bull, Vivid Zebra, and Aprilmist, will be the perfect way to kick off the weekend. Whether you’re a fan of 90s inspired thrash metal, slicked over hip hop, atmospheric black metal, or all three, this show will be the concert to catch. Like I implied at the beginning of this post, that three very separate genres are being brought together on one bill is great to introduce music fans to new forms of musical expression. - Brian Clifton - Mills Record Company

Vivid Zebra

Featuring Raymond, Ricky Roosevelt, Tione, Alccalh and Jonah P.

10 p.m. Thursday, September 14, at Replay Lounge, 946 Massachusetts, Lawrence ($3)

Lawrence hip-hop collective Vivid Zebra first emerged two years ago, and its often-experimental sounds have won the hearts of college-town music nerds while making the collective a hidden gem for outsiders to discover. Most of the group has spent the summer working on new music to drop later in the year. - Aaron Rhodes - The Pitch