Outside the gig, one long-haired kid in a five-panel cap and tight jeans lends perspective to the strange clashing of crowds within the afterwork usuals of the Friday night street scene. "It's The Underachievers, man!"
Playing to a barely-18s-up-to-mid-20s crowd, tonight comes straight outta Flatbush, New York and there are no casual fans in the house. Less Cristal bottle dropping and misogynist clichés and more "lyrical conscious expanding knowledge filled magical triple optic shit" (according to their Facebook page), The Underachievers deliver nu-skool rap for a new school — their every beat-drop, bounce and announce followed like the Beast Coast Movement was a dictatorship.
Pushing Pusha T and K Dot out for a spar before the real fight, set DJ Powers Pleasant opens up before Issa Gold and AK pounce on a cult-as-fuck crowd — peeling off not only the new LP Evermore: The Art Of Duality, but also banging out a five-year catalogue to a highly responsive bounce that runs high pace, nonstop for an hour. Punters clamber over each to grab up every table and piece of stable real estate to stomp out and head-bang while bouncers act like parents trying to protect an expensive apartment from a teenage party.
With five minutes left in their set, both MCs drop an unannounced new joint, which goes off so well they drop it twice then rewind back to bangers Generation Z and Still Shining to close out. Re-amping a deserting party with encore slam Midnight Augusto, The Underachievers disperse from the stage after dapping as many hands as they can reach in the audience.
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