By Jack M. Angelo, Senior Video Director
If you haven’t been paying attention for the last year or two, a 124-second song like Gucci Gang, where artist Lil Pump spends approximately half its run time repeating the phrase “Gucci Gang” over 50 times, reaching number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 might seem to come out of nowhere, and maybe even spell the doom of quality mainstream Hip-Hop. This wave, however, has been brewing for a while now, and with “Gucci Gang” near the top of the charts, it seems that the wave has finally crested.
Lil Pump, whose real name is Gazzy Garcia, is 17 years old, and has been making music for the better part of two years. His specific brand of short, drug themed, blown out songs has resonated with today’s youth, and launched him to a platform rarely given to someone so young and inexperienced. Given Lil Pump’s lack of what most people in the industry might call “skill,” it may seem difficult to rationalize his immense success. But one listen to “Boss,” or the aforementioned “Gucci Gang,” will quickly clear up what Pump is not only trying to do, but what he has wildly succeeded in doing.
This is not making music that makes you, or even wants you, to think. Pump’s music has an incredible capacity to turn off your brain as soon as a song begins in order to force you to enjoy the experience. People who require something deep and hidden in their music will not enjoy this. However, if you can handle taking your music a little less seriously, Lil Pump is going to be a treat. Whether the world is really taking him seriously or not, Lil Pump could not care less.
Lil Pump is currently on his first national headlining tour supporting his first album, Lil Pump Tape, and passed through The Fillmore, in Silver Spring, MD, to give the Pump experience to the D.C. area. The crowd was made up of mostly white, mostly Lil Pump-age fans, generally in their late teens, with some stragglers of all sorts, there to witness the spectacle about to unfold.
Scheduled for an 8:30 p.m. start, the crowd had grown impatient by 8:32 p.m. When a man with a sweatshirt that read, “That’s an awful lot of cough syrup,” came on stage to play two songs, he left as quickly as he came. As he performed, the crowd complained about the pushing and shoving occurring on the floor. Clearly this was among many of these teens’ first concerts, as they were unprepared for the madness of a two thousand plus crowd moving all at once. This night was not going to get any easier for them.
After a DJ named DIABLO came to the table to spin some tracks, the crowd began to rouse in excitement. A couple fights broke out, mosh pits were created, and the show had finally begun. Those who were unwilling to participate in the raucous proceedings of the night had no choice and were forced into the fray by mere proximity, and once the main act came out, all bets were off.
DIABLO played the opening bars to Lil Pump’s song “Crazy,” and the audience went exactly that as the headliner took the stage. “Jump in this bitch and go crazy!” Lil Pump’s lyrics instructed, and the crowd complied. Pump played a few more songs, alternating between pacing the stage and jumping around. At several points in the show, Pump even jumped into the audience, at one point briefly crowd surfing before sinking into the madness and being pulled out by security, all while rapping along to the song. “Y’all lit as fuck tonight!” Lil Pump repeated throughout the evening, seeming genuinely pleased with the crowd’s energy.
The 17-year-old apparently went so hard that he had to take several breaks throughout the course of the show, but treated the audience to an “extra” song in the form of playing “D Rose” for second time that night, which happens to be Lil Pump’s longest song without a feature, coming in at a whopping 2 minutes and 16 seconds. This was not the first time he had played a song twice. This can probably be forgiven, however, since Pump has not more that two hours worth of music in total.
It is unclear how long Lil Pump will be around. His album is exactly what it advertises itself to be, a bunch of crazy bangers full of energy and great production. Lil Pump has a solid stage presence for a 17-year-old and has been improving over the course of what has been his own first national tour. Lil Pump is living his best life right now and is seeing incredible success, all before the age of 18. He is not concerned about anything, and shouldn’t be. To quote the man himself, “Gucci Gang on top.”
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