Jiles

    

One of the best-known record labels in Massachusetts is Van Buren. One of the people who founded it is Jiles. Van Buren has one of the most one of a kind stories to it. Jiles said, “Van Buren Records before that it was just Van Buren, it was just a group of friends there was no music involved. It was me, Felix, my boy Moe (who doesn’t make music he is into fashion), there was a fourth member who is a friend of ours and still is a friend of ours. We were fashion kids at that time; we were best friends, then it turned into a record label after we all started taking music seriously. Obviously, with the VB name me and my friend came up with that name through the show Seinfeld. We always loved the episode with the Van Buren boys, so we just called ourselves Van Buren.”

When Jiles was in high school, he made a couple of SoundCloud songs and just put it on the platform with no promotion. Jiles never saw himself taking his music seriously. He always saw himself working behind the scenes. However, he said, “seeing Felix with the early buzz, and Luke working every day and getting better each day, week, and month, I told myself, “okay, you should rap too and take it seriously.” So that is exactly what I did.” 

On July 28th, Jiles released his EP, “It’s Not Much, But It’s Mine.” The EP consisted of five tracks and included a feature from Millyz. When asked about working with Millyz on the EP, Jiles responded with, “Millyz is a great dude, we weren’t in the studio together during that because it was during early stages of COVID. He is another one of those artists who always will keep up and listens to artists in the city. He knows who is dope and what is not. Before this, we always had a cordial relationship. He is always reaching out to the younger artists, so I decided to reach out asking for a verse, he did it with no issue, once he gave me that verse, our relationship has been a lot better.” The title of this EP also has a lot of meaning to Jiles. He explained, “When it comes to “It’s Not Much, But It’s Mine,” I had always had that title in my head. I knew I would name a project, but I didn’t know when was the right time to do it, but it just felt like the right time to do it with this coronavirus. More than ever, I realized that what I have isn’t much, but it’s mine, and I am proud of that, so with this title, I wanted people to focus on the fact that you may not be the richest person, but they can’t take away from your lifestyle.”

Jiles’ music stands out through his context. Jiles knows that there are certain things that he will say that he knows most artists won’t. He learned about rapping about his life from Mozzy. He said, “Mozzy inspires me, watching his content and speaking on growing up in the hood. Growing up with unfortunate situations and not being scared to speak on that. A lot of people don’t tell that story; they talk about glitz and glamour. I want to speak on my life growing up; it’s not the prettiest, but here is my story.”

Being from Brockton, Jiles and VB always do what they can to put on for their hometown. When Brockton was mentioned, Jiles immediately said, “Brockton is everything. I always correct somebody when they say Van Buren is from Boston because we are from Brockton. I am proud to be from and represent Brockton; when I make it, I will make sure I put people from Brockton. I will never forget my city.” Soon, Jiles plans to release the deluxe version of ‘It’s Not Much, But It’s mine.” Until then, keep streaming his music and stay in touch with Jiles on Instagram @onevanjiles.