The UK-based indie rapper is on a mission to define the artist as ‘a person who is unapologetically human’, with genre defying track: ‘i lost my mind’
Wolverhampton-born, rising indie rapper VANES (he/him/sensitiveboi) has released his new single, 'i lost my mind'. The track serves as part 3/4 from VANES' debut EP: pixie dust, a guitar-heavy hip-hop vibe that explores narratives of so-called 'codependency' following later this year.
"VANES’ punchy and, at times, school-boy (ish) sounding rap melodies continue the challenge to socially expected stereotypes of British hip-hop today" RIDE Music
As a person who loves pretty freely, the artist is also beginning to understand that his unacknowledged past hurts heavily impact his choices today. VANES' new release embodies the so-called 'needy-guy' stereotype and is intended to be played en route to meeting someone you really like but are struggling to connect with.
After sitting with the song for a while, VANES now relates to 'i lost my mind' as an important reminder of the self-work he continues to undertake, metabolising the influence unmet grief has on his capacity to give and receive unfettered love.
"Was a heat-of-the-moment thing at the studio; I was quite stoned, likely suppressing the anxiety I felt about leaving to go and meet someone who'd been driving me emotionally nuts. My producer started programming some drums, and the lyrics "I lost my mind inside a place I cannot find" pretty much fell out of my mouth. Later that night, I returned to the studio and finished the demo. We laid the guitar down a few weeks later and re-recorded, capturing the sensation I was having of being taken to 'another planet by a girl who's out of reach'…" VANES
In a recent interview with FLEX magazine, the artist explains the relationships between his actual surname (Vanes), artist name, and the self-given name 'being vanes'. He interprets 'being' as both a noun and verb, while adding his surname encapsulates the artist's raison d'être; "exploring how it feels to be VANES, expressing how it feels to be me". His personal pronoun 'sensitiveboi' is a reclamation of the kind-hearted child he arrived as, though painfully lost sight of during a self-sabotaging and tumultuous adolescence.
The fluent-in-Chinese, British-Caribbean artist was raised by a family of working-class creatives, growing up listening to everything from Avril Lavigne to Finley Quaye. VANES describes his current sound as "somewhere between Alternative Hip-Hop and Indie, largely influenced by icons like Mac Miller, NERD, Lil-Peep, MaSiWei, Blondie, and The Slits".
Outside of music he counts previous mentor Judith Malina, co-founder of The Living Theatre, NYC, as a radical influence on his artistry.
In 2022, VANES began collaborating with London-based Lithuanian producer Mindaugas Juozapavicius (Benny Atlas, Ivan Michael Blackstock) and LA-based mixing engineer Clinton "HeadAche" Walker III (Higher Brothers, Tiana Major9) to produce his debut EP: pixie dust.
Following up a visually enticing music video for recent single, 'can't feel your love', VANES continues his collaboration with indie filmmakers Robin Clewley, Lee Isserow, and Stefan Tolmachov and is energised to share a new music video for 'i lost my mind', as another chapter to this single's release.
'i lost my mind' drops TODAY on all major streaming platforms