ourculture
Born Marvellous Alagbe, a.k.a. VRSD (pronounced “versed”) is a multidisciplinary artiste; recording and performing artiste, songwriter and poet, writer and content creator. Born and raised in Ogbomoso, Oyo State. He started writing rhymes and doing rap battles online in his junior secondary year— after hearing and falling in love with the song “Democracy” by the late rapper, DAGRIN in 2016, while going on under the name Versed, he dropped an EP “Youth N Truth” on Soundcloud and Datafilehost. He officially put his first single, “Babies,” produced by Sir Bastien in 2018, under the new name VRSD.c
Uconfined to a musical box, VRSD is trying to spontaneously reposition the status quo of the African music scene with traditional African sounds with Hip-Hop elements, accompanied with uncomplicated trilingual lyricism, employing English, Yorùbá, and Pidgin English to create music with no barriers; trailblazing his own path to become the foremost rapper on the continent.
Though he has been silent since 2020 when he released his last two EPs with his collaborators; HOMEMADE EP with veteran producer Bionic the Soul King, and “Paints and Palettes ”with the incredible Blvck Topia— this latest EP expresses a colourful theme, blended with original sound like “Once Upon a Town,” a track inspired by different places and time, more like a tale, and “Ultraviolet” which fits right in the palette. Motolani Alake of PulseNg says of Paints & Palettes, “this is psychedelic, cerebral music. It’s not dissimilar to the brand of music that brought brands like Odd Future, The Internet and BROCKHAMPTON.” VRSD has been busy working on new material, and he is set to put out his first single of the year that features artiste, Oluwamillar next month.
Fun Facts:
1. Outside Hip-Hop, I got interests in writing, advertisment and filmmaking, cooking and restaurants, barbing and hairstyles, interior decorations and architecture.
2. I’m a graduate of English at University of Ilorin.
3. I used to popularly known as HolyMarvel and Da’Gaga. LOOL!!
4. Changed my name from Versed to VRSD which is just a styled version of the former, withholding the same pronunciation. Also Versed is a combination of the first three letters in ‘verbal’ and ‘sedates’.
5. My biggest influences are Saheed Osupa, Dagrin, Lil Wayne, Boogey, Kendrick Lamar, MCskill ThaPreacha, and my favourite rapper and artiste, PayBac iBoro.
6. My favourite artistes right now though are Blvck Topia, Mach-Hommy, everyone in the Bad Influence boyband, Mick Jenkins and Lord Apex.
7. Then I’m not listening to Hip-Hop, it’s Neo-Soul, R&B, Jazz, Wassoulou and Mali Blues, anything Afro and whatever Sjava is making.
8. Member of WeTalkSound, the biggest creative community in Nigeria.
9. I’m very introverted.
10. I love watching TV series or shows, and The Wire is the greatest TV show.
