Black Spade

St. Louis Roots

Black Spade, born Veto Lamar Money, is a rapper, producer and singer from St. Louis, Missouri. He has been rapping and producing since the early 1990s and spent years in St. Louis crews and collectives. From 1998 he performed with the local group Soul Tyde, whose only album, Hip-Hop & Soulful...Ish, came out in 2003 on Uprising Music. His father's record collection was the main source of his samples. He has also said he samples old VHS tapes from thrift-store bins.

Om Records and To Serve With Love

An A&R rep from Om Records, a San Francisco label best known for downtempo and house music, saw Black Spade perform in the Bay Area in 2004. Om signed him to its hip-hop imprint, which released the EP Loves Right Here in 2007 and his debut album, To Serve With Love, in March 2008. (Some sources date the album to 2007.) He produced nearly the whole album himself. Guests included Rockwell Knuckles, Tef Poe, Wafeek, Ill Spitta and Gotta B Kareem, and the tracks included "Evil Love" and "Actioneer." Reviewers pointed to his blend of hip hop with warm synths, falsetto singing and downtempo soul, a sound far from the St. Louis rap on the charts at the time. He moved to Brooklyn around the album's release but kept his St. Louis accent and his ties to the local scene.

Producer and Collaborator

Black Spade also produces under the name Stoney Rock. He produced several tracks on Rockwell Knuckles' 2010 mixtape Choose Your Own Adventure. He recorded with the singer Coultrain on Hawthorne Headhunters releases and was part of Force, a St. Louis rap collective. By 2013 he was also a member of Force, and his production was being described as a futuristic hybrid of J Dilla and Madlib. His production credits also include records on All Natural Inc., Duck Down and Jazzy Sport.

Later Work

He kept releasing solo music through the 2010s and 2020s. His releases include Build & Destroy (2010), The One Sided N.R.L. EP (2011, F5 Records), singles on All Natural Inc., the song "Ferguson" (2016), and Water to Wine (2020). In 2025 he released Build a Temple on the Touching Bass label.