If the whole BROCKHAMPTON ethos relies on inclusivity and a DIY spirit, it’s no wonder the internet factors so heavily into their mythos. They’re a group of twentysomethings who started making things as a collective through the KanyeToThe forum, who were inspired by The Social Network to move in together. They borrowed their egalitarian blueprint from Odd Future—build community online, work communally, create and share constantly and control the means of production—and grew their fanbase on Tumblr. One of their members is a webmaster.
The collective’s defining contradiction—an imaginative rap crew who prides themselves on independence but pines after signifiers of focus-grouped, factory-made corporate pop—makes more sense under these circumstances; pop stardom as populism. The internet has flattened separate worlds once deemed “real” and “artificial” into the same spaces, creating a playing field where some Tupac fans also worship One Direction unironically. BROCKHAMPTON wholly embody this. Even their insistence on being labeled a “boy band” is an attempt to redraw these lines and reclaim zones once reserved for teenybopper bait and flipping them to mean “black,” or “queer,” or “offbeat,” or “rapper.” This context is important to understanding everything the crew does, from how they make music to how they interact with their fans. They’ve so far struggled to translate their ideology into a working piece of art but on Saturation III, the collective’s objective begins to come into focus. They still paint in broad strokes and their songs sometimes still lack continuity, but they’re truly moving as a unit now, and the star power is all but obvious.
The strongest entry in this year’s Saturation trilogy, III is the first time BROCKHAMPTON have amounted to more than just a group of talented artists rapping in sequence. Songs have the same energies as before and have similar ambitions, but they are staged better and fully rendered. There are fewer clunky lines and clumsy changeovers, more memorable performances, and more fascinatingly unorthodox compositions servicing them. This is much closer to the teamwork they envisioned, weird, web-savvy rap as a pop music performance art. Before, their songs tended to be scatterbrained and incomplete, veering all over the place. Now, things are precise. “Could’ve got a job at McDonald’s but I like curly fries/That’s a metaphor for my life, and I like taller guys/Could’ve got a deal if I wanted but I like owning shit, and I like making shit, and I like selling it,” Kevin Abstract raps on “JOHNNY,” his mission obvious.
Saturation III puts their message of self-belief into practice, a crew of broken kids banding together to form the sort of in-group that always shunned them; creators, dreamers, and lovers finding their voices in fellowship. Self-deprecation is a weapon used to reclaim their identities—“I’m a shithead’s son, and I’m bad at growing up”; “Yeah, I’m ugly and genius”; “Don’t let god see me/I got a lot of demons/And I’ve been sleeping with ‘em.” On “STAINS,” a brief interjection mocks their skeptics by parroting them: “You muthafuckas made three albums, still talking ‘bout the same shit: the one gay, the one selling drugs, the one tryna act like Lil Wayne. What the fuck is this shit, man?” In actuality, they are growing out of these categories; no longer typecast into specific roles, they finally sound as self-assured as they seem.
Their individual development has benefited the whole. Abstract dictates much of what happens in BROCKHAMPTON, which works because he is becoming a more confident rapper, a cleaner performer, and an even more competent hook-maker. Ameer Vann is undeniably the group’s sharpest rapper, often turning tales of personal trauma and turmoil into parables, and on III he maximizes his space. “I used to work for people/I made a couple hundred dollars, wasn’t worth it even/I’m worth a hundred thousand/Not dollars but diamonds/I am mud out the bayou/Rip a page out the bible/Come and crucify me,” he raps on “ALASKA.” Dom McLennon has noticeably improved and is right on Vann’s heels, experimenting more with melody and trading in verbosity for efficiency. Merlyn Wood and JOBA used to be wild cards, but now they fit into the natural flow. Everyone moves with purpose.
There are more exchanges on III, members trading off every few bars or popping up in the middle of each other’s verses. Many of these transitions are effortless, the byproduct of an obvious chemistry built through practice and repetition. Abstract, McLennon, Vann, and Matt Champion swap in and out on “JOHNNY,” each piggybacking on the verse before. On “LIQUID,” members finish each other’s sentences. Several different Auto-Tuned voices segue one into the next on “ZIPPER” before Champion springs forth with a sleepy flow. Collaboration has always been key to BROCKHAMPTON but these songs are better choreographed and feel more rehearsed.
Recently, BROCKHAMPTON trolled their fans, tagging III their “last studio album,” which was funny for two reasons: As Abstract pointed out, they didn’t make these albums in a studio—they’ve recorded all of their music in their shared Los Angeles home—and they never actually planned to stop making music as a collective. “If this was the last one, I’d be really happy,” he said. “But it also feels like we have more to say.” This is a fitting end of a trilogy called Saturation, but it should be just the start of the BROCKHAMPTON experiment.
