America’s best new boyband is crammed, 13 deep, into the green room backstage at Chicago’s House of Blues. The sprawling collective known as Brockhampton (minus photographer Ashlan Grey) is preparing for the first of two nights of shows at the 1,800-capacity venue, on the tail end of their almost entirely sold out Love Your Parents tour. Four years ago, its members dropped out of their respective normal lives to move to San Marcos, Texas, where they slept on the floor in unfurnished apartments and spent every waking minute on art. Forget the corporate gloss of traditional boyband fare; instead, their songs are a giddy blend of kick-in-the-door raps, sunny-day soul, lighters-in-the-sky pop melodies and skate-punk energy.
By typical standards, their work has been paying off – and then some. Last year, the group released not just their debut album, but their second and third, too; the third, December’s Saturation III, debuted at No 15 on the US Billboard albums chart. There’s also Billy Star, a feature-length film with original music (the 22-minute trailer is available to stream), along with American Boyband, an eight-episode documentary-style TV series on Viceland. But Kevin Abstract, the group’s de facto leader, isn’t satisfied – not yet.
“We were raised differently, and I’m not even necessarily talking about our parents,” he says. The 21-year-old is soft-spoken but intense, radiating passion without raising his voice. “We were obsessed with Kanye West and people who obsess over the shit that they do, it made us the same way. We want to leave a mark, you know? I want people to look back like: Damn, Brockhampton did all of that in a very short amount of time and inspired so many people. I want …” He pauses, trying to consolidate his and his 13 best friends’ ambitions into a cohesive thought. “Fuck! I just want this shit to be so great. I’ve been frustrated lately because I want to be so great.”
Reminding him and the crew of an abbreviated list of their recent accomplishments only stokes the embers. “I’m 21; Michael Jackson was 23 when he made Thriller,” Abstract replies, matter-of-fact. When I suggest that a guy who had had to perform since he was six years old might not be the most viable standard for comparison, the room erupts into a vehement chorus of “Why not?!” from all sides.
“People want to coddle you and be like: ‘Oh, no, don’t hold yourself to that standard’ – but why?” asks Ameer Vann, the deep-voiced 21-year-old rapper who met Abstract in high school outside Houston, Texas. “Why wouldn’t I want to be Michael? Why wouldn’t I want to be 23 on the cover of Thriller?”
“Tupac died when he was 25!” exclaims Romil Hemnani, a 22-year-old originally from Connecticut who is one of the group’s producers. “He was only 25 and he accomplished all that!”
“And you know what else we have to remind each other of, even in the bigger sense of things?” adds Henock Sileshi – better known as HK – who is 23 and serves as Brockhampton’s self-taught creative director. “Trayvon Martin died when he was 17. Who is to say Ameer can’t get pulled over and something happens? We still operate in this world.”
If Brockhampton make you reassess everything you thought a boyband could be, things are going according to plan. While the crew lead with the music, they double as a self-sufficient creative agency. Alongside the singers, rappers and producers in their 14-man roster are designers, photographers and web developers (such as Robert Ontenient, who joined as a producer but taught himself code from scratch when the group needed a webmaster). There aren’t many, or perhaps any other boybands producing and mixing their own records, shooting and directing their own music videos, designing their own merch and stage sets. And there aren’t many boybands who look like Brockhampton – the majority of its members are men of colour – or whose lyrics reference giving guys head and coming out to their parents. In Junky, Abstract spells it out: “Why you always rap about being gay? ’Cause not enough niggas rap and be gay.”
And though cheeky One Direction references are scattered throughout the Saturation trilogy – “I feel just like Zayn, I feel just like Harry,” Vann raps on Boys – Brockhampton don’t sound much like familiar boybands. They rap as often as they sing; they idolise Kanye, Wu-Tang Clan, Souls of Mischief and Odd Future, and it shows. In 2018, strict ideas about genre divisions are about as relevant as cassette players, and rap’s influence bleeds into just about everything else. In other words, it’s not like hip-hop is not weird enough to accommodate an act such as Brockhampton, if that’s how they wanted to play it. But for Abstract and company, introducing Brockhampton as a boyband in a world that sees men of colour on a stage and automatically thinks “rap crew” was not a decision; it was simply what they were. “We’re boys in a band. Right?” asks Vann.
“You’ll see publications being like, ‘self-proclaimed boyband’, or put ‘boyband’ in quotes. But why can’t we be that?” Hemnani asks. “The American idea of a boyband is, like, five straight, conventionally attractive white dudes. I come from a south Asian background, and I’m not supposed to be doing any of this. I’m supposed to be a doctor, or work at 7-Eleven, or be an engineer. So, even beyond the boyband thing, doing something out of the norm for my culture in general is big to me.”
“The whole point is to redefine it,” Abstract says. “So that a group of kids who look more like us and less like One Direction could be like: ‘I want to be in a boyband. I’m-a do that.’” Specifically, the group likes to use the phrase “all-American boyband” – a phrase that feels especially striking at a time when the surface-level wokeness of US pop culture might lead one to believe that the country is much more socially progressive than it is. Dom McLennon, a 25-year-old rapper who started making beats when he was 11, doesn’t see this framing as optimistic or pessimistic so much as honest. “This is the most all-American shit you could come up with,” he says. “It’s not a positive or negative thing. America’s not a beautiful place. I’m three generations removed from slavery. I don’t have a good history here. But there’s no reason I can’t make one for myself right now.”
“NWA was all-American; Wu-Tang was all-American,” adds Abstract. “It was just a part of America you may not have seen at the time. And I feel like a Merlyn Wood verse, or an Ameer Vann verse, or Dom – their perspective is just as American as the white kids I went to school with who shot guns and killed animals on the weekends. We’re darker than other boybands and we suck dick, but we’re still very American.” He lets the sentiment sink in for a beat. “You should try to make that the headline.”
A few hours later, the crew takes the stage to the swell of the Backstreet Boys’ I Want It That Way; the overwhelmingly teenage crowd shouts along to the pop anthem probably released around the time they were born. There are wild screams and chants of “Fuck Pitchfork!” – a trope that’s become a crowd staple at their recent shows, referring to the music website – as Brockhampton explode into Boogie, a euphoric, moshpit-inducing funk banger. On the chorus, Abstract sings: “I’ve been beat up my whole life / I’ve been shot down, kicked out twice / Ain’t no stopping me tonight.” Close your eyes, listen to the crowd’s deafening noise, and you could mistake it for a One Direction reunion show.
The next day, the group has planned the tour’s sole meet-and-greet at RSVP Gallery, a streetwear boutique in Wicker Park, Chicago, co-owned by Virgil Abloh of Louis Vuitton. Two hours before it’s scheduled to start, there’s already a queue stretching four blocks. The crowd is almost entirely teens, as diverse as Brockhampton’s members themselves; Estrella, 20, and Kendall, 19, at the front, have been waiting since 6am – almost nine hours. “There are other bands that have representation, but it’s not like Brockhampton,” says 17-year-old Miracle. “As a black person, seeing other people of colour who are unapologetically themselves, speaking on things like being gay …” “And mental illness, too,” adds her friend Micquela, who is 16. We’re interrupted by Brockhampton members beginning to arrive, and the street goes nuts. “Yo, that’s Ameer!” “Jabari, we love you!” “HK, you look cute today!” The friends laugh as they politely apologise for screaming – it’s just that they have never had musical heroes like this before.