Following their final performance, The Underscene’s Andres Guzman breaks down the lyrics of Dominique Simpson
Earlier this year, I had tickets to see Brockhampton who were on tour for their latest album, Roadrunner: New Light, New Machine. Then in January, they announced that they were going on an indefinite hiatus. They canceled their tour, but still appeared at Coachella for their final performances (before announcing one final album). While I’m very much aware of the band’s popularity, they always felt like a secret, like something that was just for me. While Brockhampton always seemed to be on the verge of breaking up, and even canceled some of their albums shortly after announcing them, (including a full trilogy), this hiatus feels much more real, like the end of an era. While there have and always will be “supergroups'' who release collaborative albums and individual members with their own releases (even though as of yet, only Kevin Abstract qualifies as a solo artist), Brockhampton always felt closely special since many of them, had met as members on a Kanye West fan forum that me and my friends were also members of. Brockhampton felt like one of us, fans who transformed into artists. With every listen, their DIY approachability was a reminder that it may have been us.
Brockhampton is a self-proclaimed boy band that listed even the folks who worked behind the scenes as genuine members to allow credit to be given to everyone who made them tick. A group that often defied expectations of both music and, more importantly, subject matter. While at first their single “Heat” (which kicks off their Saturation trilogy, all released in the same calendar year) is what caught my attention, I was drawn to their lyrical vulnerability which was extremely open and kept me listening for the past four years
Like more traditional boy bands, fans are liable to fight over who their favourite member of the group may be seemingly by design, whether that’s due to their voice, their personality, or sometimes simply because of how attractive they may be. With every new album release, I often would reevaluate and change who my favourite member was, though with each release, the charismatic, charmingly funny, and impressive-flowed Dom McLennon consistently remained the watermark. It goes beyond artistic talent; the way he shares his ongoing relationship with anxiety and depression through his verses makes him more than entertaining and become something truly relatable.
In 2017, Brockhampton put out three albums, the Saturation Trilogy, which greatly increased their profile. I found out about them a few weeks after Saturation III was released through the internet communities I participated in who were floored by their prolificness. They made sure to grab hold of the listener with their aforementioned opening track, “Heat.” On first listen, you can hear the anger in the song. While most of the verses are angry at someone else or an external source, Dom is angry at himself:
“I hate the way I think. I hate the way it looms
I hate the way the things I say incinerate a room
I know I'm tryna change, but it'll never work”
This wasn’t something I picked up on my first or even tenth listen. In these lines, McLennon is warning us about his mind, and how his thoughts might scare his friends and family. Later on in the song he goes on to say “talking 'bout release dates, I'm trying to make it to tomorrow,” it’s a line I’ve said to myself on multiple occasions. It’s hard to focus on chores, tasks, and even projects when you’re looking for a reason to even get out of bed.
Throughout Brockhampton’s releases, Dom does this continuously and effortlessly. It seems as if in each song the group puts out that each member brings what they can depending on what that means to them. While musically and sonically, it always meshes well, if you stop and look at their lyrics, you might realize how far removed each member is from one another. A big example of this is their biggest hit, “Sugar.” While the song, for the most part, is about relationships and wanting to be by your partner, Dom’s verse is about his relationship with himself.
“You can find me dancin' in between the raindrops. Tryna find a way to make the pain stop.”
[…]
“This is not supposed to be a way of livin'. Tear my temple down into a prison.”
Looking at the juxtaposition in “Sugar” specifically, we’re given a love song, something upbeat - but even as we start the song, Dom’s thoughts pierce through. It’s just another reminder that sometimes, even on our best days, these thoughts have the power to incinerate a room, kick down the door, and make themselves far too comfortable.
Throughout his songs, Dom takes us on a journey that feels far too similar for so many of us, including previous rappers that were an influence and inspiration for the sincerity of his lyrics. Kid Cudi’s “Soundtrack 2 My Life” is an essential. Kid Cudi spoke about his depression, anxiety, addiction, and other personal battles openly in his music which often doubled as massive radio hits. For those who wanted to listen to the song as a party anthem, they were perfect. At the same time, artists like Dom McLennon, Jaden Smith, and Travis Scott — whose stage name is taken from Cudi’s own — not to mention his millions of fans, and felt less alone, a lot of us were saved because of his music.
“But they all didn't see,
The little bit of sadness in me, Scotty
I've got some issues that nobody can see
And all of these emotions are pouring out of me
I bring them to the light for you
It's only right
This is the soundtrack to my life”
Cudi’s journey across his Man of the Moon trilogy is about a man who tries to party his sadness away before finding himself in an even scarier, darker place. While Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager is one of the darkest albums I’ve listened to, Man on the Moon III: The Chosen is extremely uplifting. Between albums, Cudi went to rehab and faced his own demons and came out “Reborn” and happier than he ever has been. He is likely still battling his demons, but his dark thoughts don’t take over like they used to anymore.
A dark thought passing through may for some be easy to ignore. For others, it lingers and stays around and sometimes makes you act on some of the intrusive thoughts. In “TRIP,” Dom opens up and briefly speaks about self-harm:
“Everybody smilin', I don't see what's funny
Everybody friends, guess I wasn't lucky
Family full of athletes, I was kind of chubby.
Shit was never sunny, wrists were sorta bloody.”
It took many listens, but everything clicked for me on this song where I found similarities between Dom and myself.
By the time I was ten, I had already begun searching up what the word depression meant. My anxiety had me stuttering and walking the playgrounds at school alone. I retreated and went online instead of going out. Over the internet, on the other hand, I could be anything I wanted—anyone but me. So it was then that I realized I could be happy by being anyone except myself. My family is full of athletes, cousins, and uncles who play soccer in leagues around Toronto, bringing home trophy after trophy. I was eight years old when I was forced to do push-ups because my uncles ganged up on me and called me fat. I practically stopped eating in high school. It was then that I dropped to 80 pounds. It seemed to turn them around, you’ve never looked better.” Inside, I never felt worse. It’s something I still struggle with, often avoiding even looking at myself in a mirror for a moment.
I struggled with this back and forth of trying to accept myself and it made me question if I’d ever be happy. I was twelve the first time I thought about taking my life and thirteen when I attempted it. After that, I had several thoughts over the years about following through, but instead, I turned to self-harm. It wasn’t much, and it wasn’t often, but it was something that I struggled with during my teenage years into adulthood. It’s been nearly five years since the last time I had and I plan on keeping it that way.
This is the life and image that Dom shows us — one that feels like it mirrors my own across multiple albums. It all builds up to the song “Weight” primarily the first time Dom performed it.
Every member’s verse is about the weight they live with and carry. In another classic Brockhampton staple, the song is an anthem to help make those things we carry feel a little less heavy. Shortly after the release of their major-label debut Iridescence, they performed the album in full as a live stream. When it was time for “Weight,” Dom couldn’t rap all the words to his verse because he was overwhelmed with emotion. As he tries to finish it, you can hear the emotion in his voice. The band carries on, the song continues, and his verse ends. As the song approaches the bridge, he hugs another member, Joba, and tells the audience, “I feel better than ever, man. I feel better than fucking ever.” Afterward, the hook kicks in, “Pressure makes me lash back, wish I could get past that,” as Dom lets loose on stage and looks free. All the weight that he wrote about has been shed through performance.
As the song ends, the audience cheers and chant’s Dom’s name. He hugs other members of the band and then apologizes to them, “I’m sorry y’all. I’m just very happy to be alive right now.”
As you listen to the songs after “Weight” and other songs off of Iridescence, he further discusses his anxiety and depression, but it feels as if he speaks about it looking back, not something he’s currently going through. Dom’s moment on stage is one that I have felt a few times, in which I’ve looked around at the friends around me or the places I’ve been able to go, and realize how close I had been to giving up and never getting to experience those moments. A wave of emotions comes crashing over me. There’s something extremely therapeutic about putting these dark thoughts and emotions into your art, it often makes you feel less alone, and hopefully, makes those around you feel less alone as well. Dom once wrote a letter on Instagram about a fan he met after a show who appreciated his candid honesty about self-harm. Some have responded to this by saying, they aren’t the fan, but they very well could have been. Just like I could have been as well. Writing about these moments in their past for it to become public knowledge can be terrifying for your fans, friends, and family to be let in on some of the darkest moments in your life that you may not have decided to share with prior. I decided to be honest about these thoughts when I write, and it’s saved me numerous times regardless of how scary it can be.
In “Boy Bye,” Dom opens the song with the following lyrics:
“Ayy, everybody ask me how I deal with my depression.
Man look (Man look), I don't got the answer to your question.
If I did, you would probably never hear from me again.
That's a promise, not a threat.”
His depression is a major source of his artistry. It’s part of his identity, and the day his depression doesn’t hit him the same way it used to, he might stop performing and just live his life out. It’s something I’ve always battled; if I could remove it, how it would change me. It’s what informs my writing and I can only imagine the same goes for Dom (see above quote). It’s a dream we all have, to be able to wake up one day and realize it’s gone, and we’ll be okay. I don’t think it’s something that would go away, just something we learn to live with and adapt to over time. If his performance of “Weight” tells us anything, he’s on his way on that journey.
Dom McLennon creates a beautiful mosaic of his life and upbringing through the music he's released so far. These tiny moments of his battles, the battles he’s won and lost are welcomed in to watch him fight as we fight our own. The more you pay attention to his hard-hitting lyrics, even amongst the catchiest beats you can imagine, the more you get to see the real Dom and the people who are just like him, suffering in silence, or if they’re lucky, through a platform where they can talk about their wins and losses.
Following their final performance, The Underscene’s Andres Guzman breaks down the lyrics of Dominique Simpson
Earlier this year, I had tickets to see Brockhampton who were on tour for their latest album, Roadrunner: New Light, New Machine. Then in January, they announced that they were going on an indefinite hiatus. They canceled their tour, but still appeared at Coachella for their final performances (before announcing one final album). While I’m very much aware of the band’s popularity, they always felt like a secret, like something that was just for me. While Brockhampton always seemed to be on the verge of breaking up, and even canceled some of their albums shortly after announcing them, (including a full trilogy), this hiatus feels much more real, like the end of an era. While there have and always will be “supergroups'' who release collaborative albums and individual members with their own releases (even though as of yet, only Kevin Abstract qualifies as a solo artist), Brockhampton always felt closely special since many of them, had met as members on a Kanye West fan forum that me and my friends were also members of. Brockhampton felt like one of us, fans who transformed into artists. With every listen, their DIY approachability was a reminder that it may have been us.
Brockhampton is a self-proclaimed boy band that listed even the folks who worked behind the scenes as genuine members to allow credit to be given to everyone who made them tick. A group that often defied expectations of both music and, more importantly, subject matter. While at first their single “Heat” (which kicks off their Saturation trilogy, all released in the same calendar year) is what caught my attention, I was drawn to their lyrical vulnerability which was extremely open and kept me listening for the past four years
Like more traditional boy bands, fans are liable to fight over who their favourite member of the group may be seemingly by design, whether that’s due to their voice, their personality, or sometimes simply because of how attractive they may be. With every new album release, I often would reevaluate and change who my favourite member was, though with each release, the charismatic, charmingly funny, and impressive-flowed Dom McLennon consistently remained the watermark. It goes beyond artistic talent; the way he shares his ongoing relationship with anxiety and depression through his verses makes him more than entertaining and become something truly relatable.
In 2017, Brockhampton put out three albums, the Saturation Trilogy, which greatly increased their profile. I found out about them a few weeks after Saturation III was released through the internet communities I participated in who were floored by their prolificness. They made sure to grab hold of the listener with their aforementioned opening track, “Heat.” On first listen, you can hear the anger in the song. While most of the verses are angry at someone else or an external source, Dom is angry at himself:
“I hate the way I think. I hate the way it looms
I hate the way the things I say incinerate a room
I know I'm tryna change, but it'll never work”
This wasn’t something I picked up on my first or even tenth listen. In these lines, McLennon is warning us about his mind, and how his thoughts might scare his friends and family. Later on in the song he goes on to say “talking 'bout release dates, I'm trying to make it to tomorrow,” it’s a line I’ve said to myself on multiple occasions. It’s hard to focus on chores, tasks, and even projects when you’re looking for a reason to even get out of bed.
Throughout Brockhampton’s releases, Dom does this continuously and effortlessly. It seems as if in each song the group puts out that each member brings what they can depending on what that means to them. While musically and sonically, it always meshes well, if you stop and look at their lyrics, you might realize how far removed each member is from one another. A big example of this is their biggest hit, “Sugar.” While the song, for the most part, is about relationships and wanting to be by your partner, Dom’s verse is about his relationship with himself.
“You can find me dancin' in between the raindrops. Tryna find a way to make the pain stop.”
[…]
“This is not supposed to be a way of livin'. Tear my temple down into a prison.”
Looking at the juxtaposition in “Sugar” specifically, we’re given a love song, something upbeat - but even as we start the song, Dom’s thoughts pierce through. It’s just another reminder that sometimes, even on our best days, these thoughts have the power to incinerate a room, kick down the door, and make themselves far too comfortable.
Throughout his songs, Dom takes us on a journey that feels far too similar for so many of us, including previous rappers that were an influence and inspiration for the sincerity of his lyrics. Kid Cudi’s “Soundtrack 2 My Life” is an essential. Kid Cudi spoke about his depression, anxiety, addiction, and other personal battles openly in his music which often doubled as massive radio hits. For those who wanted to listen to the song as a party anthem, they were perfect. At the same time, artists like Dom McLennon, Jaden Smith, and Travis Scott — whose stage name is taken from Cudi’s own — not to mention his millions of fans, and felt less alone, a lot of us were saved because of his music.
“But they all didn't see,
The little bit of sadness in me, Scotty
I've got some issues that nobody can see
And all of these emotions are pouring out of me
I bring them to the light for you
It's only right
This is the soundtrack to my life”
Cudi’s journey across his Man of the Moon trilogy is about a man who tries to party his sadness away before finding himself in an even scarier, darker place. While Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager is one of the darkest albums I’ve listened to, Man on the Moon III: The Chosen is extremely uplifting. Between albums, Cudi went to rehab and faced his own demons and came out “Reborn” and happier than he ever has been. He is likely still battling his demons, but his dark thoughts don’t take over like they used to anymore.
A dark thought passing through may for some be easy to ignore. For others, it lingers and stays around and sometimes makes you act on some of the intrusive thoughts. In “TRIP,” Dom opens up and briefly speaks about self-harm:
“Everybody smilin', I don't see what's funny
Everybody friends, guess I wasn't lucky
Family full of athletes, I was kind of chubby.
Shit was never sunny, wrists were sorta bloody.”
It took many listens, but everything clicked for me on this song where I found similarities between Dom and myself.
By the time I was ten, I had already begun searching up what the word depression meant. My anxiety had me stuttering and walking the playgrounds at school alone. I retreated and went online instead of going out. Over the internet, on the other hand, I could be anything I wanted—anyone but me. So it was then that I realized I could be happy by being anyone except myself. My family is full of athletes, cousins, and uncles who play soccer in leagues around Toronto, bringing home trophy after trophy. I was eight years old when I was forced to do push-ups because my uncles ganged up on me and called me fat. I practically stopped eating in high school. It was then that I dropped to 80 pounds. It seemed to turn them around, you’ve never looked better.” Inside, I never felt worse. It’s something I still struggle with, often avoiding even looking at myself in a mirror for a moment.
I struggled with this back and forth of trying to accept myself and it made me question if I’d ever be happy. I was twelve the first time I thought about taking my life and thirteen when I attempted it. After that, I had several thoughts over the years about following through, but instead, I turned to self-harm. It wasn’t much, and it wasn’t often, but it was something that I struggled with during my teenage years into adulthood. It’s been nearly five years since the last time I had and I plan on keeping it that way.
This is the life and image that Dom shows us — one that feels like it mirrors my own across multiple albums. It all builds up to the song “Weight” primarily the first time Dom performed it.
Every member’s verse is about the weight they live with and carry. In another classic Brockhampton staple, the song is an anthem to help make those things we carry feel a little less heavy. Shortly after the release of their major-label debut Iridescence, they performed the album in full as a live stream. When it was time for “Weight,” Dom couldn’t rap all the words to his verse because he was overwhelmed with emotion. As he tries to finish it, you can hear the emotion in his voice. The band carries on, the song continues, and his verse ends. As the song approaches the bridge, he hugs another member, Joba, and tells the audience, “I feel better than ever, man. I feel better than fucking ever.” Afterward, the hook kicks in, “Pressure makes me lash back, wish I could get past that,” as Dom lets loose on stage and looks free. All the weight that he wrote about has been shed through performance.
As the song ends, the audience cheers and chant’s Dom’s name. He hugs other members of the band and then apologizes to them, “I’m sorry y’all. I’m just very happy to be alive right now.”
As you listen to the songs after “Weight” and other songs off of Iridescence, he further discusses his anxiety and depression, but it feels as if he speaks about it looking back, not something he’s currently going through. Dom’s moment on stage is one that I have felt a few times, in which I’ve looked around at the friends around me or the places I’ve been able to go, and realize how close I had been to giving up and never getting to experience those moments. A wave of emotions comes crashing over me. There’s something extremely therapeutic about putting these dark thoughts and emotions into your art, it often makes you feel less alone, and hopefully, makes those around you feel less alone as well. Dom once wrote a letter on Instagram about a fan he met after a show who appreciated his candid honesty about self-harm. Some have responded to this by saying, they aren’t the fan, but they very well could have been. Just like I could have been as well. Writing about these moments in their past for it to become public knowledge can be terrifying for your fans, friends, and family to be let in on some of the darkest moments in your life that you may not have decided to share with prior. I decided to be honest about these thoughts when I write, and it’s saved me numerous times regardless of how scary it can be.
In “Boy Bye,” Dom opens the song with the following lyrics:
“Ayy, everybody ask me how I deal with my depression.
Man look (Man look), I don't got the answer to your question.
If I did, you would probably never hear from me again.
That's a promise, not a threat.”
His depression is a major source of his artistry. It’s part of his identity, and the day his depression doesn’t hit him the same way it used to, he might stop performing and just live his life out. It’s something I’ve always battled; if I could remove it, how it would change me. It’s what informs my writing and I can only imagine the same goes for Dom (see above quote). It’s a dream we all have, to be able to wake up one day and realize it’s gone, and we’ll be okay. I don’t think it’s something that would go away, just something we learn to live with and adapt to over time. If his performance of “Weight” tells us anything, he’s on his way on that journey.
Dom McLennon creates a beautiful mosaic of his life and upbringing through the music he's released so far. These tiny moments of his battles, the battles he’s won and lost are welcomed in to watch him fight as we fight our own. The more you pay attention to his hard-hitting lyrics, even amongst the catchiest beats you can imagine, the more you get to see the real Dom and the people who are just like him, suffering in silence, or if they’re lucky, through a platform where they can talk about their wins and losses.
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