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88. The SATURATION Trilogy - BROCKHAMPTON (2017)

Hip Hop

The world of hip hop has taken an unusual and unpredictable route through the past decade. Ten years ago, Kanye and Drake were establishing themselves as the present and future heavyweights of the genre. Other early-2000s icons, like Eminem, Ludacris and Lil Wayne were still making huge impacts on the game, while other newcomers, like Kid Cudi were finding their voice. Nowadays, the game has shifted - significantly - skewing towards shock rap, mumble rap and other derivative iterations of the genre being churned out by characters that bear no resemblance whatsoever to their predecessors. But not all hope is lost.

BROCKHAMPTON, a self-proclaimed “boy band”, is an LA-based hip hop collective that represents just about every positive of rap in the latter half of the 2010s. They’re blatantly original in just about every way. For starters, there are about 15 of them, give or take, and the diversity within the group itself is remarkable. Just about all races and walks of life are represented. This eclectic makeup has undoubtedly been a dominant factor in shaping the flavor of the music they produce. 

The mega-group was born out of a shared appreciation for Kanye West way back in 2010 (via the online forum “Kanyetothe”) and has since morphed into a one-of-a-kind vehicle for its members to constantly reimagine what hip hop can be. In many ways, they’re the antithesis of what the genre has been about for the last 20 years. Flaunting their insecurities, anxieties and fears as if they’re stacks of cash, BROCKHAMPTON have no interest in being cool. Which, of course, is precisely what makes them so cool. The production across the expansive SATURATION trilogy is all over the place, borrowing from a litany of influences, not just in hip hop, but from seemingly everywhere. For a project as ambitious as this (3 full-length albums in 1 calendar year) with so many moving (and breathing) parts, it’s astonishingly cohesive, even as it shifts lanes, which it does, frequently, and with blistering pace. There are a handful of artists pulling hip hop forward in the right direction and these guys are among the strongest by far.

*image; cover art for the album SATURATION II by the artist BROCKHAMPTON