Switching gears from performing for an evening, Spencer Sims, known under his artist moniker as [Suspenceful Music Playing], opened up his new venture, [suspenceful brands], to the public with a launch event at Plaza’s Tip Top Market on Saturday night.

Starting off, Charlotte artists B-Villainous and DJ Captain Crispy entered in as the surprise musical act. While playing tracks off his most recent album, Guillotine, Villainous showed off his love of classic console generations with his Mortal Kombat anthem, “Fatality Flow”, and ode to the NES, “BizNES”.

While the occasion at its core was a kick-off party for Gaming Buds, a recreational hemp brand he started as a way to support artists, the scene then took on the feel of a 2000’s gaming get-together. Using monitor setups provided by entertainment non-profit The Gaming Lounge, each console that Sims brought was linked together over LAN connections, allowing up to 8 people to play in the same game.

In the modern gaming era, where a player may never see the thousands of opponents they will come across in online matches, Sims’ display looked to replicate a scene from a specific time in video games where those were the players in that community. During Halo’s lifetime as a more active franchise, LAN parties bringing together communities and friend groups, all their own game copies and consoles, in the same room for a night of matches was more common than in current day.  

In each form his previous events have taken, either as an artist or as an organizer in the background, a sea of happy faces in community with one another is exactly what Sims is going for. While the hemp brand does play a part in the reason for July 19’s occasion, bringing people together is fundamental to the entrepreneur’s vision and philosophy. According to Sims, everything he aims to do under the brand, a project two years in the making, is also to help creatives reach their full potential.

“suspenceful brands is like opening the box of “Do Anything”. With the right work ethic, there doesn’t have to be one thing that you have to do,” Sims said to RF20XX. “Even in my music, you could see me once and be like, “Yo, he’s a rapper,” and then you could see me a completely other time and be like, “Oh, he’s an R&B singer, or he makes rock n’ roll. That’s the same style [I want] for suspenseful brands, with Suspenceful Music Playing included in it.”

Every piece of the night’s event also showed off another interest of Sims’; working with the local community of creatives. Alongside The Game Lounge and the hip-hop duo, Sims brought in local artists stencilspray and Matthew Clayburn, who used Xbox 360 face plates to create homages to the gaming icon of the night, Halo’s Master Chief. Another local creative, BadWolve Curations, brought variations of Pokemon’s main device, the Pokeball, with each manifesting the image of the creatures within the long-running Nintendo franchise.

“I think that we’re better together, and our identity isn’t just made up of one thing,” Sims said. “So, I’m thinking outside of the box. And everything is outside of the box. There’s nothing in the box anymore.”

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