Brockhampton stopped by
The Late Show With Stephen Colbert on Wednesday, where they performed “Don’t Shoot Up the Party” off their latest album
Roadrunner: New Light, New Machine.
Bringing the same energy on the song to the stage, Brockhampton created their own rave as they thrashed and jumped their way through the performance. The entire group was sporting matching outfits as LED lights flashed behind them in what should definitely have had an epilepsy warning attached to it.
Roadrunner: New Light, New Machine dropped in April and features Danny Brown, ASAP Rocky, ASAP Ferg, Charlie Wilson, and JPEGMAFIA, as well as standout tracks like “Don’t Shoot Up the Party,” “Old News,” and more.
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It says a lot about the messed up nature of the 21st century that rap collective Brockhampton have been styled as a boyband; once the soulless inventions of music moguls churning out third rate pap for teenagers, the modern day equivalent is built from less malleable stuff.
Roadrunner – New Light, New Machine is a clumsy title for what it’s claimed is their demi-swansong – a second, supposedly their last, is due later this year, although it feels a little like we’ve heard that line before.
What isn’t in dispute is that it’s been a difficult time (and then some) since the group’s last album Ginger, although impatient fans did subsequently get the Technical Difficulties mixtape, premiered in disparate fashion on YouTube and Twitch.
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Roadrunner: New Light, New Machine is reportedly Brockhampton s penultimate album, with the final album due for release sometime later this year. The past few years have been complicated for the group after Ameer Vann s ignominious dismissal. Despite the challenges,
Roadrunner is a concise and focused musical statement that explores nearly every corner of what hip-hop has become in recent decades.
The production is made memorable by its innovative use of instrumentation. Decorations of jazzy saxophones, sexy synths, and warm piano are strewn throughout the project with every song giving the listener a completely different experience. The track Dear Lord, in particular, departs from the aggressive rap preceding it, giving the listener a jolt of hymn-like choral singing to console a grieving Joba reeling from his father s suicide.