Photo by Sahar Coston-Hardy
Philly rapper Verb Tec‘s conscious raps and sharp lyricism are reflective of his identity as a Black man, loving father, husband, and former school teacher– all of which come to a head on his latest album No Struggle No Progress. Heavily inspired by Curtis Mayfield‘s self-titled debut album, No Struggle No Progress tells Tec’s personal story of struggle and triumph through his “undying quest for freedom and justice” over soulful Jazz and R&B-inflected Hip-Hop stylings of the ’90s and early aughts. While the vast majority of the project is produced by Tec’s fellow Pennsylvanian and frequent collaborator Vanderslice, the album closes with the high-octane TROX-produced track “Letter From Portsmouth”, which bridges generations and pays homage to Tec’s ancestry, bringing the struggle and progress theme full circle.
“My mother’s side of my family is from the Portsmouth, VA’s Tidewater area. As the last song on the record, I wanted to honor that part of my family story and also tie that into the overall struggle/progress theme of the album. My great-grandmother, who was a lifetime Portsmouth resident, also passed in late 2020 as I was writing the song, so I wanted to use it to honor her journey in life, too… I had been sitting on this TROX beat for awhile and wasn’t sure where it would go in the sequence of the other songs. It felt right for it to be the bookend of the record. My 12 year old son Tahj has the last line on the song, which is a refrain of the hook… I just wanted to involve him and make his voice timeless too. He was in-studio with us during the last session when this was recorded.” – Verb Tec
Exclusively premiered today, the Josh “Esso” Wann-directed music video for “Letter From Portsmouth” creates “the same energy as the track”, says Tec. “I also wanted to shoot in film and black and white to give it a completely different aesthetic.”
Watch “Letter From Portsmouth” on YouTube here.
