Underground rappers JPEGMAFIA and Danny Brown stormed the Agora Theater & Ballroom on Saturday as a part of their Scaring the Hoes tour.
What ensued was far from your average Cleveland show.
Before the festivities even began, medics ripped through a sweaty, congested crowd to handle a situation unseen through the mass of very young concert goers. (The average age must have been 23, if that.)
It was a chaotic — and at times, odd — night. At one point, a fan held a Nintendo 3DS high as they played Super Mario Kart. Another group raised up messages to the crowd on their phone. Attire ranged from standard summer fare — shirts, tanks, a lot of skin — and nigh miserable-looking fits adorned with fur hats.
And then the concert began.
After a brief, explosive set from Philadelphia’s Starberry, JPEG and Brown hit the stage to thunderous applause.
Chants oscillated between “Peggy” and “Danny,” perforated by screams as fans ingested two genre legends occupying the stage at once.
Tearing into the new album, a flood of college-aged bodies ebbed and flowed to and from the stage. A mosh pit seemed uncertain of itself, opening and closing at random from one end of the room to the next.
In moments, Peggy and Danny became a force. The former hyped the crowd to a fierce boil as the latter provided an onslaught of collected, seasoned rhymes.
The duo made their way through new collaborative tracks as the night progressed, rattling off jams like “Kingdom Hearts Key,” “Lean Beef Patty” and ending the album’s run with the eponymous “SCARING THE HOES.”
But the real magic came in the form of two mini sets from Peggy and Danny, respectively.
Starting with the former, JPEGMAFIA ripped through hits alone on stage as the crowd screamed back the words to “1539 N. Calvert” and “Puff Daddy.”
In a rare moment of calm, Peggy addressed the crowd.
“I look around the crowd, you know what I see?” he asked.
Nearly everyone made the same joke; Peggy caught on quick.
“If you said, ‘white people,’ you’re racist,” he quipped, as the crowd, predominately white, erupted in laughter.
He quickly added: “I see a bunch of people with gorgeous hair.”
The hairless performer then lifted off into his track “Bald,” to the delight of fans.
When Danny’s turn finally came, the underground veteran hit folks with “Really Doe,” inciting a riotous response to the 2016 track originally featuring fellow legends Kendrick Lamar, Ab-Soul and Earl Sweatshirt.
By the time the energy died down, a sea of millennial and Gen Z patrons flooded out as if their lives depended on it.
Worming our way out the door became nearly impossible, and we passed the third person wheezing in front of the crew of medics we’d seen all night.
With only a brief opener, JPEGMAFIA and Danny Brown's show amounted to what felt like a fever dream — a flash fire burning hot and fast before we found ourselves back home in record time.
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