
we build soft futures from hard truths

Our Why
Velvet Grind is a creative house rooted in Oakland, where stories breathe and memories stay alive. We build spaces for truth, beauty, and justice to unfold — soft where the world has been hard, honest where others perform. This is a grind that holds you. A place where the work serves the soul, and the story always comes first.
THE GRIND WE STAND ON
TRUTH OVER PERFORMANCE
creativity as resistance
Beauty without pretense
community as inheritance
Justice as restoratioN
memory as power
our roots
Velvet Grind was born from porches and parking lots. From the stoops where we sat and listened to grown folks talk. From the quiet corners where music floated out of open windows on summer nights. From Ghost Town. From North Oakland. From Black Oakland.
We were raised by choirs that taught us how to blend, how to listen, how to breathe together. We learned rhythm in rec centers, patience at hair appointments, confidence in the presence of aunties who knew how to hold space. The grind began long before we had the language for it — in our mothers’ sacrifice, our grandmothers’ wisdom, our cousins’ quick wit, and our own choice to stay soft in a world that demanded we harden.
The Gray Ghost still rides in our memory — that old Pontiac Grand Prix, rolling through Ghost Town, full of laughter, gasoline, and Sunday plans. Everything we build now carries that same spirit: moving through this world, beautiful and steady, even when the road is cracked.
Velvet Grind remembers what was taken. It carries the grief of stolen land, stolen voices, and stolen futures — and still insists on beauty. On joy. On gathering. On building futures we own.
This is not hustle culture. This is soft grind. The kind that leaves space to breathe, to feel, to create with dignity. The kind that holds room for art and healing and conversation late into the night.
We honor the ones who left too soon. The ones who never got to tell their full story. This house was built so we can tell ours.
Do you remember when…?
That’s where we begin. Every time.

What we do
Creative Direction
Media Production (Audio, Video, Storytelling)
Web & Brand Design
The Grindhouse (Studio Rentals)
Second Instrument (Live Sound & Event Tech)
Cultural Resistance Framework (Mentorship & Future Programming)
We don’t just make content. We build cultural infrastructure.

What Velvet Means Here
Velvet is soft. But velvet is strong.
Velvet resists while remaining beautiful.
This is the grind we believe in:
Protecting tenderness while building power.