InI - Artists
Vivienne Shakur
aka VVN SHKR - The SoulRebel
Vivienne Shakur surprises every time she picks up the microphone. She is not only a skillful powerhouse on stage. Her lyrics painfully burn the crooked schemes of Babylon and uplift the hearts and minds of everyone in the crowd. Every time she leaves the audience yearning and demanding for more of her.
Vivienne was born in the GDR in 1981. She was singing and inventing songs since she was a little child. Her elderly neighbor loved every time she was cleaning the house's stair case humming a melody and brought a smile to her face. Her first official performance was at 7 with the peace song "Kleine weiße Friedenstaube". Vivienne then joined the school choir and the gospel choir of a nearby church in her neighborhood. She was about 13 when she started to rap, deeply inspired by Lauryn Hill, Tupac, Wutang, Arrested Development, Public Enemy and Bone Thugs, but also Bob Marley, Sizzla, Capleton and
Buju Banton, and many many other great artists of Reggae and Hiphop.
Vivienne brings you the fire since almost 3 decades though back in the day she went by the stage name Chalique. She was the front group of WU-TANG/ RZA in the Pom-Arena in Jena in 2003 with Reggae Selecta Madlock and cooked a crowd of over 2000 people and made them scream and jump in the air. Still, she found herself most times in a very rough male environment that too often refused to put her on line ups or work with her in fear of being outshined by her fierce talent and sharp lyrics.
So she rocked the crowds in jam session all over Germany. She also worked with the Canadian producer Grim Reefah and Westcoast legends of the Chillin Villain Empire related to Project Blowed:
NGAfsh, Self Jupiter, Riddlore? and Ellay Khule on tracks like
"Wanna know", "Back of the Bus", "Freeze" and "Not like me", and
others produced by bay arean Unstable like "Westcoast Boogie".
Since there was already another group called Chalique she opted for a name change and chose to go by Vivienne Shakur to give respect to her own heritage and the powerful Black Panther movement, but also to the meaning "Give Thanks for Life" for surviving many sketchy times in her life. She was looking for a better place, left her city Erfurt and moved to Berlin in 2016. She founded an all female HipHop collective with femcee Leila Ey called women's world where she and other female rappers and singers performed before being shut down by Covid19. She also gave workshops and online-courses for young female MCs. Vivienne also worked with the American House artist Antonic, cowrote and coproduced several House chart hits for him.
In the mean time Vivienne Shakur studied business and media design to take her destiny
in her own hands, build her own label and bring out her songs by herself because Vivi's motto
is "Bless nah stress".
She was supported in this decision by Reiner Scheerer, the label owner of Springstoff, a famous independent music label of Berlin, when she was an intern as his assistant of management.
So she founded InI Music with the Jamaican artist Ilive DappaMann in the end of 2023 and works now consistently on her new album. She is the underdog on the rise and she never stops to surprise. Her new works will be officially released this summer.
So be ready when songs like "Goodness of Jah", "Change this World" and "The Devil dont know me" drop!
As a true Soulrebel her perseverence is barely matched. Her lyrics hit you straight in the heart, challenge your mind. She will have you standing up with a bigger chest and your head held high walking through the streets of Babylon.
She is one of the pioneers of the new world of InInI.
