Vayda
Vayda, born Victoria Bryant, is the whispery-voiced Georgia native setting new standards in the digital underground for fast-moving, sample-heavy, highly addictive music. As a shy child raised in Stone Mountain, a suburb just East of Atlanta, classic jazz and 2000s hip-hop intermingled in a home that encouraged her to not just listen but play music. So much so Vayda’s first love was a keyboard at the age of seven. The French horn came next, the instrument of her band-playing days. But no musical tool captivated Vayda’s creative mind like the beat-making program FL Studios, a gift she received from a middle school classmate. The captivation with creating led to over 10,000 hours put toward self-producing, self-recording, and self-releasing a series of singles and short projects that have now generated more than 40,000 monthly Spotify listeners and amassed over 170,000 views on YouTube while also earning recognition from music publications Pitchfork, Nobells, The Cut, and THE GRAMMYs—without a major record deal.
Today’s reverence did not come overnight. Before Vayda, she was Venus, a placement-pursuing music producer inspired by Soulection Radio remixes. She achieved little success selling her eclectic, danceable tracks at studio sessions in Atlanta, the mecca of trap music, because local rappers found her beats weird and unordinary. Rather than compromise the craft she worked at improving, the beats overlooked in person became flips of industry favorites hosted online through her Soundcloud, where they lived in relative obscurity, except for a few semi-viral moments. The small but dedicated attention she began receiving showed there was promise in uptempo rhythms made to make people move. It wasn’t until after purchasing an inexpensive microphone during the 2020 pandemic that vocals appeared over her songs. They were harmonies and melodies at first, but when she did rap, the views were even higher than when she didn’t. Inspiring Venus to become Vayda.
Vayda’s approach to manipulating samples, pitching-up vocals, hyper-quick tempos, and personifying fun, feminine energy benefits short run-times and shrinking attention spans. She initially increased her BPMS and condensed song lengths to compensate for limited studio gear and poor recording quality. Those limitations brought a breakthrough in crafting a signature style that, at times, sounds untidy and chaotic like a good basement rave. Or energic and erratic like she made it for lo-fi house parties, boiler room sets, and New Jersey clubs. Then there’s Pluggnb Vayda, the lonesome lover where serenades are sassy, confessions are vulnerable, and samples are chopped and looped soulfully. Or Trap Vayda, a rowdy, one-woman matching band. Or Drill Vayda, spitting self-aggrandizing lines and enemy-deflating lyrics. As a digital girl in an age of downloading style and uploading updates, Vayda is the avant-garde shapeshifter bringing out the best in every genre she touches while asserting internet humor, spunky angst, and hot girl sincerity all at once.
Although the quality is there, the quantity of music has helped to accelerate the attention surrounding Stone Mountain’s rising star. One journalist has paralleled her diligent output to the likes of Gucci Mane and NBA YoungBoy, a fair assessment sense, much like them, Vayda has found momentum flooding the online market with EP after EP, releasing six in 2022 and another three the following year, not including her debut mixtape, Forest Gump, released on December 8th, 2023. Forest Gump is her strongest offering yet, expanding to include outside producers (Brent Rambo, Noah Salem, Rxlvnd, Nedarb, O.G. Herm), multiple different song structures, and a focused writer with plenty to get off her chest. It’s a proper addition to her prior projects without losing sight of what made them magnetic. And these aren’t winded offerings, no runtime exceeds 18 minutes, with the shortest of the bunch can be heard in under seven minutes. Fader Magazine referenced in a blurb on Vayda that, “Great music can be measured in milliseconds,” and her growing catalog is a testament to how true the quote is.
Today’s reverence did not come overnight. Before Vayda, she was Venus, a placement-pursuing music producer inspired by Soulection Radio remixes. She achieved little success selling her eclectic, danceable tracks at studio sessions in Atlanta, the mecca of trap music, because local rappers found her beats weird and unordinary. Rather than compromise the craft she worked at improving, the beats overlooked in person became flips of industry favorites hosted online through her Soundcloud, where they lived in relative obscurity, except for a few semi-viral moments. The small but dedicated attention she began receiving showed there was promise in uptempo rhythms made to make people move. It wasn’t until after purchasing an inexpensive microphone during the 2020 pandemic that vocals appeared over her songs. They were harmonies and melodies at first, but when she did rap, the views were even higher than when she didn’t. Inspiring Venus to become Vayda.
Vayda’s approach to manipulating samples, pitching-up vocals, hyper-quick tempos, and personifying fun, feminine energy benefits short run-times and shrinking attention spans. She initially increased her BPMS and condensed song lengths to compensate for limited studio gear and poor recording quality. Those limitations brought a breakthrough in crafting a signature style that, at times, sounds untidy and chaotic like a good basement rave. Or energic and erratic like she made it for lo-fi house parties, boiler room sets, and New Jersey clubs. Then there’s Pluggnb Vayda, the lonesome lover where serenades are sassy, confessions are vulnerable, and samples are chopped and looped soulfully. Or Trap Vayda, a rowdy, one-woman matching band. Or Drill Vayda, spitting self-aggrandizing lines and enemy-deflating lyrics. As a digital girl in an age of downloading style and uploading updates, Vayda is the avant-garde shapeshifter bringing out the best in every genre she touches while asserting internet humor, spunky angst, and hot girl sincerity all at once.
Although the quality is there, the quantity of music has helped to accelerate the attention surrounding Stone Mountain’s rising star. One journalist has paralleled her diligent output to the likes of Gucci Mane and NBA YoungBoy, a fair assessment sense, much like them, Vayda has found momentum flooding the online market with EP after EP, releasing six in 2022 and another three the following year, not including her debut mixtape, Forest Gump, released on December 8th, 2023. Forest Gump is her strongest offering yet, expanding to include outside producers (Brent Rambo, Noah Salem, Rxlvnd, Nedarb, O.G. Herm), multiple different song structures, and a focused writer with plenty to get off her chest. It’s a proper addition to her prior projects without losing sight of what made them magnetic. And these aren’t winded offerings, no runtime exceeds 18 minutes, with the shortest of the bunch can be heard in under seven minutes. Fader Magazine referenced in a blurb on Vayda that, “Great music can be measured in milliseconds,” and her growing catalog is a testament to how true the quote is.
