Never would’ve met my friends if not for satellites: BROCKHAMPTON, the internet’s first boyband

by Sam Harris

Self-proclaimed “All-American Boyband” and breakout internet superstars BROCKHAMPTON are our digital knights in shining armour. With their rise to fame culminating in a crucial moment in music culture, they weaved their way into the collective consciousness of thousands of kids searching for a beacon of hope or creativity or just some funky hip-hop grooves to give them a sense of community. It’s rap for a lost and searching youth, those scrambling for a direction that’ll impress their parents or be warmed with some essence of fulfilment. With two albums under their belt since June, and another scheduled for December, BROCKHAMPTON are the internet’s greatest gift to date.

Although consisting of an ever-fluctuating range of members, there exists most concretely a single character at the heart of the collective. BROCKHAMPTON’s founder and leader is one 21-year-old, openly gay, African-American kid from Houston, Texas who goes by the name Kevin Abstract; disciple of Frank Ocean, Childish Gambino and Tupac; the kid you ignored in high school but wish you were friends with now. In juggling a solo career, Kevin has also been vocal in documenting the journey that brought BROCKHAMPTON together. Landing a show (American Boyband) on Spike Jonze’s VICELAND, Kevin had a camera crew follow him on his first solo tour in late 2016, a narrative aided by a handful of revealing stories from the then-blooming members of the group—a crafting of character. A detailing of Kevin’s past also exists ubiquitously in his tweets or off-the-cuff Instagram live confessions; tangible too in the candid lyrics of his sophomore solo record, American Boyfriend: A Suburban Love Story. The heart of his story then begins in 2015. In the company of a few of his high-school skater/rapper friends, Kevin rallied a ragtag group of equally-lost, equally-talented kids from across the country on Kanye West fan forum KanyeToThe.com at the call for something radically new—the redefinition of a “boyband”.

Roster:

Kevin Abstract	Vocals	Jabari Manwa	Production (half of Q3)
Ameer Vann	Vocals	Kiko Merley	Production (half of Q3)
Merlyn Wood	Vocals	Henock “hk” Sileshi	Creative direction
Dom McLennon	Vocals, production	Ashlan Grey	Photography
Matt Champion	Vocals	Robert Ontenient	Webmaster, production
JOBA	Vocals, production, engineering	Nick Lenzini	Stylist
Romil Hemnani	Production	Jon Nunes	Management
bearface	Vocals, production	Anish Ochani	Management

I, like many others, found BROCKHAMPTON when they began releasing singles in early 2017. The collective was on a high, riding the collaborative wave as the energy in their share house (dubbed the “BROCKHAMPTON factory”) began to reach its peak. In the weeks leading up to the release of their second mixtape, SATURATION, they dropped a number of super stylised, low-budget-but-working-with-it music videos for their four-lettered leading singles. “FACE” lead the pack: a moody, soothing, lovey-dovey ballad that was then backflipped on with “HEAT”, a punk-rock inspired barrage of noise and anger, complete with some their most inspired lyrics to date (“I’ll break your neck so you can watch your back”). Soon after, “GOLD” hit the internet and everything changed. Sporting by far their catchiest hook yet, the video lured them out from behind the curtain and launched them to directly into the spotlight. People began listening — a lot — and charting their popularity, they flipped the switch on SATURATION from sophomore mixtape to debut album, a realisation of their fan-base’s ever-growing size and a need to officially signpost their rise to stardom. The final video before SATURATION, the aptly titled “STAR”, dropped just over a week out from the album’s drop and solidified their position as the hottest up-and-coming artists on the scene, a hypnotic trading of verses that weaved filmic and pop cultural references in a bombastic display of youth — all the while riding a golf buggy through the streets of South Central, L.A. Most of all, it was a pure expression of the fun they were having doing it.

This independently-managed album rollout method was tightened for the release of their surprise follow up, SATURATION II, released in August. Where the original SATURATION’s videos relished in the abstract and freeform, BROCKHAMPTON’s opportunity to replicate the success stressed a greater thinking through of the album’s release, a conscious understanding that more fans equals more responsibility. “GUMMY”, the first of the five-lettered singles each released a week apart, teased a more narrative-driven side of the group’s visuals. The video followed the group on an oddly calm and absurdist getaway from a bank robbery, rapping out of the sunroof the entire way as titles popped onscreen and detailed their various roles in the story. Devoid of any greater meaning, the video appears a framework for the group to workshop different creatives bouts of energy—and get Ameer to pose with an alpaca. “SWAMP”, however, proved that BROCKHAMPTON were still capable of the kaleidoscopic nature of their original videos, giving Merlyn a Sesame Street-inspired puppet clone to fly though the sky with as he sings to the powers of the internet. Thirdly came “JUNKY”, furthering this fluidity with a hypnotic plucking of strings backing Kevin’s most illustrious verse to date (“I spit my heart out, lookin’ out for my best interests / He gave me good head, peepin’ out while the windows tinted”). The video documented the darker side of each member, tortured in both appearance and delivery through Froot Loop-filled baths and blood-soaked garments. Rounding the second quadrilogy of singles out was the stream-of-conscious funk-a-thon, “SWEET”, a fitting coda that proved the group were truly eight for eight. They had saturated the game without a lacklustre chord in sight; ennui had never been this exciting.

The beauty in BROCKHAMPTON’s success lies in the freedom of their operation. Although managed by Kelly and Christian Clancy—the same couple that oversaw Odd Future’s rise to fame (and by extension, Frank Ocean, Tyler, the Creator and Syd) — the group possess the rare, independent power to craft their art the way they want to. That everything is produced in their own household by their own group members is telling of their philosophy. These are kids who found a void in the musical landscape that was waiting to be filled with homegrown, mask-off type music; lyricism evocative of youthfulness, the beauty in being young and dumb; songs about love and loss and taking risks, completely resonant with a generation able to harness the collective powers of the internet. The connection that people feel to the music is — as I’ve also found personally — revelatory, and important in the current musical landscape.

Where the latest Taylor Swift video will undeniably have been gone over with a fine-tooth comb, perfected to perpetuate and prolong an imagined and highly-dramatised narrative that ultimately feels ten-times removed from the artist, BROCKHAMPTON, by comparison, feel real; their message tangible through the soundwaves. The in-house manufacturing of their entire brand (maintained by the freakishly talented Henock “hk” Sileshi, the group’s creative director and graphic designer) ensures the authenticity of their vision, a committed hi-fi aesthetic to complement the grassroots nature of their production. Everyday, they’re active on Twitter and Instagram, giving you a buzz on how their first tour is going, or how the new album is coming along, or meddling with some in-joke, cultivating and connecting with an already devout fan-base (they are a boyband after all). It’s music that makes you feel like you can go and do what you really want to do alongside these guys, which — for me, at least — doesn’t come around all that often.

Although donning the title of “boyband”, they’re more sonically indebted to the likes of Odd Future and Kanye West than any kind of music One Direction ever produced. Similarly, they’re more of family than a band (gracefully illustrated on a lost cut from SATURATION, “LAMB”), strung together across miles of empty road and pulled from the face of adversity, all in the name of producing something new and hopefully revolutionary. Through a recontextualisation of ideas surrounding what a “boyband” should be — flickering ideas of masculinity and conventionality — within a multicultural, ever-fluid and wholly subversive environment, BROCKHAMPTON crack the confines of the term wide open. Ideas of community come naturally as an extension of their creation, genuine connection as opposed to deliberate construction. The “boyband” has been stripped of its rigid boundaries; disassembled in Southern L.A. and reconstructed on the internet.

To make appealing music is one thing, but to draw in a devout audience and distribute this sense of inclusion to kids from all walks of life is another. How a bunch of 20-something-year-olds going through their own shit in the States managed to make a kid from rural Victoria feel this way about a couple of raps and a handful of tweets is a testament to the giant, intangible network that surrounds us. So, when Merlyn raps “Never would’ve met my friends if not for satellites” on “SWAMP” — an unconventional but ultimately wholesome sentiment — I feel tucked away in a pocket of these feelings. The impenetrable walls that guard my emotions are let down, even if only for a second. We may be separated by tens of thousands of kilometres of ocean but I feel included in their scheme, ethereally welcome in the BROCKHAMPTON community at large, engaged in their call and response.

“Here for the loot, and to inspire some of you” calls Matt on “CHICK”, conscious and conscientious. My response? This.

BROCKHAMPTON. The brand, the band, the family; curated online, but nurtured in the company of one another, in the hands of their followers. May their influence extend throughout the internet and beyond. May SATURATION III close out the trilogy with a bang.

you forgot brockhampton https://t.co/OiFgVGXpVF

— ian dumbass simpson (@kevinabstract) October 18, 2017

Don’t forget BROCKHAMPTON.