Perfect for work and play — Riot’s Sessions: Vi review

Jul 7, 2021

The rise of lo-fi hip hop has been nothing short of meteoric over the past five or so years.

The chill genre of music is perfect for working, relaxing, gaming, or creating video content. This type of music fills a unique niche for people who want to listen to music without being overly distracted by the music.

When I heard that Riot Games Music was dropping the Creator-Safe Sessions: Vi lo-fi hip hop beat collection, I was excited. If the music was good, it would be a great resource for both my everyday listening habits and for my online video edits, since according to Riot the music is creator safe.

And I am happy to report Sessions: Vi is filled with genuinely good tracks. Not every song is a masterpiece, but there are some gems on the album that I have already added to my regular rotation of work focus music.

Sessions: Vi great background music for work and play

The Sessions: Vi collection is great background music for working, creating, and playing.

As far as work goes, the majority of the songs featured on Sessions: Vi are relaxing and energizing at the same time. The album is filled with music that won’t distract you from your tasks but will remain engaging to listen to. As I said before, I have already added several of the songs on the new album to my workday focus playlist.

The music is also good for creating with. As previously mentioned, the entire album is creator-safe. So whether you are a video creator or a streamer, you can use this music without fear of the DMCA strikes. The various tracks are also diverse, so playing through the album they won’t get repetitive or boring for viewers on stream. On top of that, you can get a lot of 20-30 second moments out of the 37 tracks for those looking to use this album for making videos.

Finally, I think this album provides great background music for playing games. The musical sounds and themes are already gamer-focused, so it fits right in with a video game session. A lot of gamers like to play with a little music in their headphones, but music with a lot of words in it can make in-game voice comms more challenging, or be distracting. So really for the same reasons this album is good for work, it's also good for play.

While my overall impression of the album was very positive, there were some songs that left little impression on me and other songs that used samples that I found distracting. For example, the song “late year” by trinity features a clacking sample in its introduction and uses a sample of children yelling later in the song, which I find to be jarring. A few other songs made some odd creative decisions that didn't excite me, but I still think there are more good songs on the album than bad ones.

A look at the artists featured on Sessions: Vi

Riot recruited some incredible artists to take part in this collection. The album includes work from the following 22 artists:

While all the artists bring their own style and sound, the collection itself is actually quite cohesive. The production quality of the songs is consistently excellent. Each artist used the entire available stereo sound-stage to create a more interesting landscape. The creative use of stereo, combined with the rich bass and delightful samples, makes Sessions: Vi a delight to listen to on headphones.

I particularly loved Sinnr’s track “I Exist." It had jazzy vibes, with heavy reliance on piano, old-school synth sounds, and some of the most creative stereo sweeps on the whole album. It also features some creative uses of compression that helped switch things up and keep the track interesting throughout. This song really is ear candy.

Another song that I really liked the vibe of was “Weekends” by chromonicci. This song used ambient sound effects like rain and cars passing by then transitions into an upbeat jazzy single with a very dope baseline and some great brass instrumental fills. I could see myself using this song in a video or audio project where I was looking to set an upbeat and positive tone.

Verdict: 8/10

Session: Vi is a really cool collection of music that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys the lofi hip-hop genre. It was really cool of Riot Games to put together this super interesting collaboration of creator-safe music that anyone can use and create with. Riot Games tapped some really talented artists and put together a cohesive album that flows from start to finish.

Not all the songs are amazing, but there are enough great songs on Session: Vi that the goods outweigh the bad.

Pros