A lot happened in Richmond this past weekend, all of which showed that the River City still rules the Commonwealth. There are obviously great things going on all over Virginia, but none quite stack up to what Richmond can pull off in the course of 72 hours.

Just a quick list of what went down this weekend: Activists stood in solidarity with the national prison strike at the Richmond City Jail, there was the 16th Annual Happily Natural Day, the ever-eventful Cultural Crawl RVA, Thank You, Aretha Franklin: A Life Celebration with Gallery 5, the start of Black Breastfeeding Week, Wing Chow’s opening exhibit “Flux” at Artspace, and Full Moon Fever at the Broadberry – just to name a few that we can remember (hint, hint).

And no doubt, the squad missed something rad because we can only manifest our physical presence at so many places at any one time. Yet, this is RVA Mag so we clearly threw our Saturday in the direction of Vinyl Conflict and the Rest in Pieces Appreciation Day Block Party featuring bands like Nosebleed, Slump, and of course, Richmond hip-hop giant Nickelus F. We also dropped in on the 7th Episode of Lyricist Lounge at Strange Matter, where Radio B, Illa Styles, BC Music and other artists performed and competed to be the live cypher champions.

The collaboration between scenes in Richmond – the punk and rap scene – is as inspiring as it is essential, and proves that the River City is one of the few outposts in the Commonwealth that is still looking towards the future in both substance and style.

Some of the best photos from these events can be found below:

Vinyl Conflict Customer Appreciation Day

Lyricist Lounge: 7th Episode