Photo credit: Emanuel Rios
Brockhampton fans particularly fond of their song “Star” were in luck Friday night. The California rap collective not only played it early in their set, but also for their encore. And then they played again, and then twice more after that, as the crowd grew louder and more ecstatic with each pass. And, after they invited fans on stage for a climactic fifth consecutive run through of the song, seemingly ending the night, they did it one last time for good measure.
Playing the same song seven times in a night is the kind of power move a band can only get away with when they have the crowd completely and utterly eating out of their palms, but Brockhampton had that luxury Friday night at the Eagles Ballroom, performing to roughly 2,000 or so hungry fans at what they said may have been the biggest show they've ever played (the show was originally booked for the Rave but moved to the larger venue to meet the demand). “Why are there so many people here in Milwaukee?” the group's defacto leader Kevin Abstract wondered. “This is strange.”
While it's anybody's guess why Milwaukee, of all places, might be their most receptive market, it's no mystery what Brockhampton's appeal is. With their Saturation trilogy, the group released three of the wildest, most ideas-rich rap albums of 2017, and even disregarding the caliber of their music and the astounding songwriting gambits they pull off, there's never been a rap group that's presented themselves quite like them. They're like something out of Mike Pence's worst nightmare: a multiracial group representing an array of sexual identities, that was only half-joking when they talked about pushing “the gay agenda” at their concert Friday. “Why you always rap about being gay?” Abstract rapped on “Junky,” answering his own question: “Because not enough niggas rappin' be gay.”
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Brockhampton call themselves a boy band, and that isn't just cheeky branding—it's a radical paradigm shift, a rejection of hip-hop's historical notions of masculinity. They sing a bit, harmonize a little, and sometimes they dance. But mostly they rap their asses off. They performed for two hours Friday, which is virtually unheard of for an act that only released its debut last year and still doesn't have a radio hit to their name, but their music is so dynamic, with such a diversity of tempo and volume (not too mention voices and perspectives), that holding the crowd's interest was never a problem. Sometimes, in their animated pileup of tangents and injections, the group resembled a modern-day Pharcyde, though Pharcyde's music was never so wide-ranging or form-breaking. For the close of their first set, the band's singer/guitarist Bearface took the stage solo for a pair of stirring, Prince-indebted slow jams, a moment that would have seemed out of left-field at nearly any other rap show.
More than the other rowdy, young rap crews that came up before them, Brockhampton aim to channel their misfit energy into something constructive. “I've been beat up my whole life,” the band sang over the funk breaks of their set opener “Boogie,” one of the lyrics the crowd sang along with the loudest. It's a line that resonates with anybody who's been targeted because of their race, sexuality or maybe even just because of their haircut, yet Brockhampton deliver it without much hostility. There was a time not long ago when rappers' default way of processing ostracization was to make others feel ostracized as well—think Eminem, snarling the word “faggot” and sending the clear message that not everybody was welcome in his world. If the young, mostly sub-drinking age crowd at Friday's show had been born two decades ago, many of them might have been at an Eminem concert, channeling their anger and insecurities into unadulterated hatred. Instead they spent the night singing along to bright, peppy songs about celebrity crushes and boyfriends. It's remarkable how powerful a rap show can be when everybody's included.
