Cody Vaughn is about to enter Hamline history. He is the first Hamline student to open up Winter WonderJam on Feb. 18. You might think that would make him nervous, but Vaughn, who goes by the name Covenant onstage, laughed off that question when I sat down with him over J-term.

“I wait for this. This is the stuff I dream about. I’ve wanted this since I was a freshman. I just want it to be good. But I’m not nervous,” Vaughn said.

Ahead of one of his biggest shows yet, Vaughn knows what this history-making performance could lead to.

“I want as many Hamline people there as possible, not just to have people there, but so the music atmosphere here can emerge,” Vaughn said. “We have so many artists here, and people don’t even know it. We should have a Hamline student open every year.”

Vaughn spoke on why it’s important to have a student perform at Winter WonderJam

“I want to do well so when I leave, they can use that atmosphere as a selling point. They’ll sell the sports teams or facilities or other benefits,” he said. “But a lot of young people are as artistic as they are sports minded. I feel like this generation is going to express itself in a multitude of different ways, whether that’s fashion, music, art, poetry whatever. I want to leave my mark on Hamline.”

“Because if I did this all by myself, imagine what future Hamline students can do with support. We can get people access to the studio, access to Piper Vision, access to HU Radio. I want the student body to witness this, because that could be you next year. You could be continuing the legacy.”

Vaughn’s story begins when he overheard some Odd Future music in the locker room after football practice, coming from Corey Colfax. The two bonded over this mutual love of music, and when Vaughn mentioned that he wanted to rap, the two started making beats at Colfax’s house. Vaughn notes ,“a lot of my stuff would not be possible without Corey.”

The partnership has proved fruitful, with two mixtapes on Soundcloud under the Covenant moniker, the majority of tracks on them produced by Colfax, Vaughn’s music is already starting to blow up. His biggest song, the moody track “Tsunami Miami” already has over 20,000 streams on Soundcloud. How did this happen?

“Three months ago, it had only about 2000 or 3000 plays. What ended up happening was I went to this fashion show and I run into this DJ, DJ Phoenix, and he liked me. He said ‘I want to be your mentor, send me your info and a song. I’ll try and get it played on KMOJ.’ He played it, and after that phones went off the hook. People were asking ‘what is that song?’” Vaughn said.

Vaughn’s been able to thoroughly incorporate his classwork into his career. “I’m a political science major, and I’ll be in a class about party polarization, and I start thinking ‘I can bring that in as a metaphor for a song.’ I took public speaking classes, and that helped with my performances. I’m more comfortable around people, and I project better. I took speech classes, and that helped me learn rhetoric, how to persuade people to come to shows or buy merch. Hamline has definitely helped me. It pushed me to be someone I couldn’t be if I hadn’t been here.”

But Vaughn isn’t just an artist. In addition to being a rapper and Hamline student, he started his own record label, Outlaw Ent.

“I want to start a small record label to help people get the stuff that I didn’t have. Outlaw is about trying to help and promote good people with something good to say but no platform. I’m just the first building block to get a bigger
platform.”

Vaughn runs the label, which manages other Hamline students, like Drake
Singleton, Patrick Ramirez, and Bakari Jackson.

“As much as we’re involved in music, we want to make things better for everybody, everybody to live free. You can live your whole life and not be free. Look at where we are,” Vaughn said. “We got people here because they’ve been told to go to college by society, nothing more. We’re about doing the right thing, even if it isn’t what they want you to. At the end of the day, it’s your life.”

The Outlaw ethos of living free of societal expectations is starting to resonate, and it’s just the beginning.

“I want us to be huge. I want us to be like OVO [Drake’s label] or TDE [Kendrick Lamar’s label]. I want our own section on the BET Cypher.”

With any luck, Cody Vaughn and the rest of the Outlaw  roster can get there. But it’s more than just living free or taking over the rap game for Cody Vaughn.

“I didn’t just start music for me. Music really helped me with my insecurities, my self-image, my depression. Music saved my life, so I want to save other people’s lives that way.”