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CREDIT: COR/TAN Records / TheNamelessCollective
Favorably compared to A$AP Mob and Odd Future for their versatile sound and offbeat, self-made visuals, the Avant-Garde Club (AG Club) juggles listeners’ hopes and their own ambitions. On their latest two-part release,
Fuck Your Expectations, the East Bay area hip-hop collective focus on their genre-bending, DIY sound and leave all judgments behind them.
The haunting horror-game-random-encounter horn that opens lead single “COLUMBIA” almost jumps out of the instrumental, and it’s one of the most recognizable sounds on part one of
F.Y.E. But on the album, it’s followed not by the boastful lyrics of rapper-writer Jody Fontaine but the astounded voice of Apple Radio’s Zane Lowe.
AG CLUB
“Everything’s personal with the music,” Jody Fontaine of AG that s Avant Garde Club states intensely. He s sitting on the back porch of the Los Angeles home that the entire group inhabits, frat-house style. The young MC/songwriter is just one component of the explosive 14-member crew, a San Francisco East Bay Area-spawned collective that houses everything from a production company, to graphic designers, to videographers, to self-proclaimed “fashion guys”.
The idea of authenticity is one they stress throughout their conversation with
Billboard, reiterating that everything the group creates from their lyrics, to their visuals, to their fashion choices is genuine, pure, and unlike anything you’ve experienced before. “That s the whole point of AG Club. It’s like a break away from reality.” Jody shares. “F k the rules.”