Like many kids raised by caring grandmothers in the Southwest side of Detroit, the son of an absent mother and drug-addicted father, Jonathan Fields grew up loving hip-hop. What he didn’t know then was he would soon be embarking on a road that took him straight to the man who opened the door to hip-hop and fed it to the masses.
Jolted by the sudden death of his beloved grandfather, who died of a heart attack in Fields’ arms when he was just eight years old, and bearing witness to the series of heart attacks his grandmother suffered as she aged, he began to hang with the wrong crowd as he grew into his teens. Soon he would watch his friends became statistics – a story all too common in many other urban neighborhoods where gang violence prevails. Knowing he had to get out of this spiral or end up another casualty of the streets, he made his way to L.A. Fate, via a new friend, introduced him to the world of activists and visionaries. Their cause: animal liberation. After attending his first protest and being handed pamphlets graphically illustrating the cruel realities of factory farming, vivisection, the fur trade, etc. Fields became so moved by this new community, he decided to dedicate his life to getting the message of animal rights across to the masses as an artist.
Enter Peta’s Person of the Year, who also happens to be the Godfather of Hip-Hop, Russell Simmons. Impressed by Field’s activism and determination (he’s now known as Vegan Boss), Russell showed up unexpectedly at one of his gigs, and introduced Vegan Boss to the audience. After the show, he invited him to make an appointment to come into his office for a meeting. There, Simmons offered him some star-making tips. Simmons’ message was clear: Yes, stay true to your cause, but don’t just write songs about that one struggle. He urged Vegan Boss to expand his reach by not just writing songs that preached to the choir but to write more love songs, thereby drawing in a larger audience who would then learn about veganism, animal exploitation and enslavement not only by the other songs Vegan Boss performed, but by becoming fans who wanted to learn more about him. Simmons suggested Vegan Boss to draw in the audience using a hit song in a digestible format that would lead the fans to the other songs that are animal rights driven. The fans would find their way to The Vegan Boss website, Vegan Federation, and from there, they would be educated about the cause so close to his heart.
Taking the mogul’s advice to heart, Vegan Boss became known as VB and decided to write a love song about struggle, society’s pressure on individuals to attain perfection and the love between a man and a woman. In keeping it all in the family, Russell Simmons #1, Simone Reyes and her blind dog Hubbell Yoda were featured in the video. The song that VB wrote after meeting Russell is called “Runaway” and it is our honor to present the video to you here as a GlobalGrind exclusive.
Below: Simone Reyes wearing VB’s shirt, to support his Vegan Federation site
Follow the movement @VeganBoss | Facebook
