Brockhampton: From Boys to Men
Brockhampton has been on a crazy journey over the past few years. They started out as a teenage boy band who met on the internet, then they decided to release three albums in the span of six months. They lost a core member of their group during the height of their success. They came back from losing a member and dropped one of the most personal, heartfelt, and beautiful albums in all of 2019. Join me on this journey of exploring how Brockhampton became the greatest boy band in the world.
Back in the early 2010’s the internet was booming; social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram were starting to hit their stride, and you could find a fan forum for any topic imaginable. Kanyetothe (or KanyeLive) was a very popular forum, due to Kanye West’s lasting popularity and impact on the music industry. On this forum, users speculated on Kanye’s next album drop, his most recent shows, and a wide range of topics regarding music. In 2012 Kevin Abstract (real name Ian Simpson) made a post on the forum simply titled, “Anyone wanna make a band?” Many people commented on the post, with a few users being interested. Eventually, that post would grow to be the foundation of the boy band we know today as Brockhampton. Kevin Abstract went to Woodlands High School in Texas and there he met Ameer Vann, Merlyn Wood, Joba, and Matt Champion, who would become the first members of the band. The idea was sparked by Abstract when he was shown a graphic with “AliveSinceForever” on it. Abstract spoke on the inspiration it gave him in an interview with GQ, “My friend Jalen Jones was a graphic designer and producer and engineer from Las Vegas. And he sent me this graphic that said “AliveSinceForever” on it, and I said it’d be a cool collective. So we made a little group together on KanyeLive. Everyone was […] there except Ciarán and Ashlan. I checked KanyeLive the way I check Twitter now. Every day, all day, I’d be in school checking it. It’s how I found new music. It’s how I learned how to talk, in a way.” The band was started with around 15 members and they went by “AliveSinceForever”. Jabari Manwa producer for AliveSinceForever and now Brockhampton felt very inspired by the way Abstract composed himself and performed his music; “ I also saw a performance of Kevin doing a rendition of “That Thing”, the Lauryn Hill song, and that’s when I knew he was 100 percent going to be a star. It was very clear, just with how fucking confident he was at a young age performing, the types of songs that he was writing, how much he was trying to experiment with music at such a young age. The ambitiousness.” The band’s spark was lit from there, and they started sending beats and verses to each other for a few years. Once they all graduated high school all members decided to make a big leap into the music world together.
AliveSinceForever became Brockhampton in late 2014, after the street that Abstract lived on when he was growing up. The name change wasn’t just for looks — it was meant to show the new path the band was going on, as said by vocalist Dom McLennon, “The main difference between Brockhampton and ASF, was there was not really much autonomy, or control, or leadership in ASF. It was just a bunch of solo artists doing something.” Brockhampton was a group, not a collective of solo artists making music together. Many of the members moved to San Marcos, Texas together and while some stayed in their original homes, the group was still coming together regularly. With some members in Texas, some in Connecticut, and Manwa in his home country of Grenada, the band remotely put together a debut mixtape. All-American Trash was released in March 2016. The mixtape was met with a lack of critical praise, as it had a lot of shortcomings. It sounded like a collection of solo artists making songs on an album together, which was antithetical to what Brockhampton wanted to do.
Dom McLennon had moved to LA that January before the album’s release with a couple of friends who weren’t members of Brockhampton. He recalls a certain talk with his real estate agent; “Our real estate agent was like, “If you guys need anything, let me know.” And honestly, just being a troll, I was just like, ‘You got a seven-bedroom house?’ She was like, ‘Down the street.’ I called Kevin, he came by, we saw it, and he was like, ‘Yeah, let’s do it!.’” All the members of Brockhampton moved into a house together. The band began to push themselves to make music and create an album. They would wake up early in the day and make music until around three to four a.m. With about 15 people in a seven-bedroom house, it meant that many people were sleeping on the floor, and writing songs in the kitchen. The vision they had for themselves was so much bigger than what they had at the moment, so sleeping on air mattresses was the least of the band’s worries. In May of 2017, the boy band released a song titled “FACE” (Brockhampton stylizes all of their song and album titles in all caps) and announced their debut album would be releasing in a month, titled SATURATION. Merlyn Wood would later state the only problem with announcing the album release date, “When we announced the album, we didn’t even have any songs done.” Brockhampton wanted to prove to themselves, and their soon-to-be fans, that they could make an amazing album in a month. They were recording in the summer in LA, and they didn’t have air conditioning in their place. During the day the house and their equipment would begin to overheat, “Me and Jabari and Kiko [Merley], our computers were literally overheating, and we’d have to stop recording just because the shit wouldn’t work. There’s this sense of urgency to the music because it’s like, “We have to get this done now because my computer is going to overheat and I’m not going to be able to record anyone.” The band also dropped a song and an accompanying music video every week leading up to the album, the songs released included “HEAT”, “GOLD”, “STAR”, “BOYS”, and “FAKE”. The boy band ultimately came through on their promise and released the album on June 9th. The album opened with the hard-hitting “HEAT”, which starts with a punchy verse from the cover boy, Ameer Vann:
I got pipe dreams of crack rocks and stripper poles
Of fucking centrefolds
So I got secrets only me and all my niggas know
Of kicking in the doors.
The song leads into a bashful verse by Joba, who has a message to his haters:
Fuck you!
I’ll break your neck so you can watch your back,
Fuck you!
Although the boy band had released a mix-tape a year prior, Saturation was the first album most people had heard from Brockhampton. Choosing “HEAT” to lead the album is a bold move; any new listener may have turned off the album and stopped listening. The album has hard-hitting tracks like “HEAT” and “BUMP”, and softer tracks like “FACE”, “SWIM”, and the emotional “MILK”. “MILK” is the perfect song to show someone who has never listened to Brockhampton — each vocalist provides an emotional look into their lives leading up to this juncture. Merlyn Wood comes through with a verse about how he got to LA with his boy band:
I just moved to California, with my boy band
Dropped out of a good school
Hippies in my commune
I left ‘fore the rent was due
Used to want a briefcase
And a short commute
Used to wanna sell coke
And whip an Audi Coupe, crazy if I did that
Wouldn’t be talking to you
After the success of Saturation Brockhampton was prepped and ready for their follow up. During the listening party for the first album, Henock Seloshi, the band’s graphic designer, talks about how Abstract had bigger plans; “I remember we had a listening session of the first Saturation in me and Kiko’s room. I’m like, ‘That’s great, man. Wow, we have a great album. I don’t know what we’re going to do next.’ And Kevin’s like, ‘Man, we’re gonna keep going. We’re gonna do a 2, we’re gonna do a 3.’ And I was like, ‘We’re going to keep going?’” For Saturation 2, Brockhampton was going to follow the same formula they did for Saturation: release a single and a release date without having any of the songs done. The boys began making songs and when they all agreed it was a hit they would pass it off to the graphic designer, Henock “HK” Sileshi, and videographer, Ashlan Grey, and they would begin to plot out a music video for the song. Then they would film, edit, and in no time the video would be up on YouTube. Brockhampton would continue this formula up until the end of the Saturation trilogy. Saturation 2 was released on August 25th, 2017. On August 22nd, three days before the album’s release, the band dropped a single titled, “FOLLOW”, and in the corresponding music video, they teased the finale to the trilogy, Saturation 3. Brockhampton promised that the finale to the trilogy would come before the end of the year, which gave them just over four months, which is almost too much time for the boy band. They went on tour in September of that year to perform the first two albums — a break for the busy band (even though they were still working).
The band had a month to take a break from making music and videos, which gave them time to come up with the vision for their finale. The band changed their formula a little bit, as only one single and the music video was officially released prior to the album’s release. This song was “BOOGIE”, the energetic and danceable opening track. “BOOGIE” is a manic song; the beat sounds like a car alarm going off, but better. On the song, Abstract proclaims that Brockhampton is, “The best boy band since One Direction”. The album was released on December 15th and the band had officially written, recorded, mixed, and mastered three albums in less than six months, not to mention the 10+ music videos they also made. The band would embark on an even bigger tour this time. The tour would begin in January 2018 and go until March. Brockhampton had morphed into a fully-formed group of artists who never wanted to stop working — or providing for their fans.
Once the legendary Saturation trilogy was over, Brockhampton had plans for another album titled TEAM EFFORT that they would ultimately scrap. Then in April of 2018, Brockhampton announced that they had signed a $15 million dollar deal with RCA records. The deal was for six albums over three years, which Brockhampton proved they could easily do. The album also made sure that the band still had creative control over all their music, videos, merch, and basically everything they created.
Then tragedy struck the band. Ameer Vann who was one of the core vocalists in the group, and the face of the Saturation albums, was accused of sexual and emotional abuse by multiple women. The accusations took over social media and became a big story, and the band was left with a decision. Do they defend their friend, a person many of them had known since childhood, or do they kick him out of the group? On May 27th, just over two weeks after the allegations had surfaced the rest of the band decided to part ways with Vann. The decision was met with both praise and criticism as some fans were sad to see Ameer go, and others happy they did the right thing by not supporting abuse. The remaining boys later found out that Ameer had set a friend of Dom McLennon’s up to get robbed, and that was the last straw. The band was ready to move on. The decision broke the group down, they had just lost one of their closest friends, and not to mention they were on a tour at the time and they were supposed to have an album out within the next few weeks. Brockhampton decided to cancel the rest of their Love Your Parents Tour, and also scrap a new album concept, PUPPY. They all took some time off from making music, which was the best decision they could have made. The band members have stayed fairly quiet on the topic of Ameer Vann, but when they have spoken they have been nothing but respectful.
They all decided to go to Hawaii to get away from all the media. Abstract has spoken about having to decide the group’s new directions after this fracture: “I went to Hawaii before them. And when I was there, I was completely off making music. I was off. I didn’t trust it. The trust issue was — it was insane. I kind of felt isolated and alone. And at some point I was kind of like, I don’t want this to fuck our money up. So I was thinking about how we cancelled the tour. And I was like, We should just fucking keep going. Looking back, I don’t think that was the smart thing to do. Because we were playing shows and writing songs when we should have been focused on healing and reflecting. I shouldn’t have been worried too much about money because that shit comes and goes.” The band knew they needed to take some time off and heal, but the idea was foreign because the group as a whole hadn’t taken time off in over a year.
HK spoke about how the whole situation with Ameer strengthened them as friends and as musicians, “If anything, the whole ordeal made us strengthen the bond. It made us talk more, be more transparent with each other, and let people know that we’re here for each other amidst anything. Like, it strengthened us to not give up, even though it felt like shit was at the end.” While in Hawaii the band knew that they were slated to perform on The Tonight Show, and they were supposed to perform a new song, but they didn’t have any. That’s when the track “TONYA” was made. Named after the famous figure skater, Tonya Harding, who dealt with tragedy with her ex-husband conspiring to injure Harding’s competition in the Olympics. They debuted the song on The Tonight Show in a simple, stripped-down performance; they all sat on the ground together with a beach background on a green screen behind them. Abstract’s verse steals the show, as he touches on the emotions he was feeling at the moment,
Sometimes it be so spot on it hurts
Like when Auntie couldn’t decide between going to work or church
I’ve been in my feelings on an island in the dirt
I feel like brothers lie just so my feelings don’t get hurt
I said, I’ll try vacationin’
I’ll try to run away.
The song was a glimpse into what Brockhampton’s music was going to sound like for the near future. The band dropped three songs, “1999 Wildfire”, “1998 Truman”, and “1997 Diana” and they were presumed to be singles in anticipation of their next album. It later turned out that these three records were likely songs that were meant to appear on PUPPY, the band releasing them just for the sake of it. In late 2018, the band went to London, England with one goal; to make a whole album in 10 days. Not only were they going to make an album in 10 days, but they were also going to write and record it at the legendary Abbey Road studio. This is where the Beatles recorded their album Abbey Road (surprising title right?). In late August, Abstract posted on Instagram announcing the upcoming September release of their next album iridescence. The album was released on September 21st, 2018. The album became Brockhampton’s first number one album on the Billboard 200 charts with 101,000 units sold. The album was met with critical acclaim and was generally well-received by the public. The album definitely had a sadder tone compared to the driven, energy-filled Saturation albums, but perhaps surprisingly, the topic of Vann and his departure did not come up in any of the tracks. McLennon later said that a lot of the lyrics he had written about Vann had been recorded before they were at Abbey Road studios, so he decided to scrap them.
In early 2019, Abstract began releasing some solo work and had plans for a solo album. Abstract realized that while recording the album he didn’t have any creativity and that he wanted to work with the group again. So instead of an album, Abstract released an EP titled Arizona Baby. Then in late April of the same year, Abstract announced that he and the band had started working on their next album. The band took a lot of influence from Atlanta rap duo, Outkast, and specifically their hit song, “Hey Ya!”. “Hey Ya!” is a well-known song about people feeling stuck in relationships, and failing to find fulfilling love. This song was a huge hit though because the beat was upbeat and pop-like and thus people could dance to it, no matter the tone of the lyrics. That’s what Abstract wanted to do, make an album that was sad, but that people could also dance to. That’s when GINGER was born. Brockhampton released the first single from the album titled “I Been Born Again” on July 31, 2019, and then a week later they released “If You Pray Right”. The next week they released “Boy Bye”, which was a dance track but with sad lyrics, exactly what Abstract and the group wanted to do. “No Halo” was released the following week with features from vocalist Deb Never, and frequent collaborator, Ryan Beatty. The album was eventually released on August 23rd, 2019. The project is Brockhampton’s best to date. The Saturation trilogy was historic but they were rarely talking about their issues and what they were going through as a group. On Ginger, the group opened up about everything. In the middle of the album, we get to the track, Dearly Departed, which is a song about the loved ones they lost. Abstract opens the song with a line about Vann,
What’s the point of havin’ a best friend if you end up losin’ him?
Matt Champion opens up about losing his friends and never getting to travel the world with Vann, while Joba speaks about losing his grandmother, and missing her funeral because he was busy on tour. Dom McLennon closes out the song with a very emotional verse about Vann and the pain he caused him. I’m going to put the whole verse below as it perfectly encapsulates how McLennon and the band feel about the Vann situation.
How many sides to a story can there be when you saw it with your own eyes?
I got all my thoughts out on records y’all won’t ever hear
Tried to give it time
Find that truth trickles down, hits the fan
Freezes over like a dagger to the spine
When somebody that you know throws you in the fire
How do you survive?
I kicked down the door inside a home I didn’t own just to save a friend’s life
Little did I know, the one who pulled the strings was once on my side
I had just moved to Texas, tried to make it right
I do not feel obliged to dismiss the truth because of how I feel about our time
If I knew what you would do to someone you owe money to, you wouldn’t get a dime
Watch for where you land, sorry ‘bout your plans
That was all a scam, you won’t understand
Pass the weight off to your friends and never face the truth
Because you never learned how to be a man
And it’s not my fault, and it’s not my problem anymore
That’s just where you stand
That’s just who you are
That’s your cross to bear
You could talk to God
I don’t wanna hear, motherfucker.
The band had made an album that they never could have imagined making during the Saturation era, but they did it. They wore their hearts on their sleeves, and their fans appreciated it. The album debuted at number three on the Billboard 200 charts, selling 65,000 units. Brockhampton went on another tour in which they titled Heaven Belongs To You Tour, named after a song off the album.
Brockhampton started out as teenagers who just wanted to make music together and now they are performing in arenas all around the world. They have one of the best work ethics I have ever seen in musicians. Back in high school, group projects were the most challenging, because of the aspect of reliance on others to do a fair share of work to achieve individual and group success. Working together can be hard, especially when it comes to making music. Everyone has their opinion on how they want a song to sound or how they want an album to look like, and there can be a lot of conflicts when it comes to creativity. Brockhampton proved that 13–15 guys can live together in a house and not only not get tired of each other, but they can make multiple classic albums together, and then tour the world. Brockhampton is an inspiration to many kids around the world, as they’ve shown that if you want to do something, then do anything you can to achieve that. Just maybe if you work hard enough you could become the greatest boy band in the world.
