Pitchfork writer Alphonse Pierre’s rap column covers songs, mixtapes, albums, Instagram freestyles, memes, weird tweets, fashion trends—and anything else that catches his attention.
Bandmanrill and Mcvertt are leading a new wave of rap inspired by the hyperkinetic sounds of Jersey Club
Jersey club is all about insanely uptempo BPMs, overlapping samples, kicking drum triplets—and the hyperkinetic dances those sounds inspire. The style sprouted around the turn of the century when Newark, New Jersey producers like DJ Tameil, Tim Dolla, and the Brick Bandits began to stray from their Chicago house roots toward the manic drum patterns of Baltimore club. Since then, Jersey club has undergone many evolutions, and the latest comes from the Newark rapper-producer team Bandmanrill and Mcvertt.
About a year ago, the teenage duo started cranking out songs to soundtrack the sweatiest, muggiest house parties—the type of function you see in the video for their breakout song “Heartbroken,” where everyone piles into a cramped room and dances their ass off. The single went nuts on TikTok and added a new wrinkle to East Coast dance-rap by laying Bandman’s drill-leaning flow on top of a breakneck Jersey club beat based on a sample of UK producer T2’s 2007 hit. “Is this a gimmick or is it actually hot?” was a question asked by skeptics, like myself. Then Bandman and Mcvertt followed a similar formula four more times, with incredible results. Yeah, it’s hot.
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Now it feels like a lot of people are putting out rap singles over club beats. A hotspot for the movement is Philly—a midpoint between the club scenes in Newark and Baltimore—where rappers like D4m $loan, Zahsosaa, 2Rare, and the Philly Goats are churning out irresistibly catchy anthems. (If you haven’t seen the Philly Goats dance, I suggest you do so immediately!)
Like any trend, there’s been some wave-riding, too. In the last couple of weeks, New York’s drill scene has begun to include elements of Jersey club in ways that can feel opportunistic; the beats are mostly watered-down, with drums that don’t pop, and the sample choices are uninspired. For example, Brooklyn rapper Kha Strucutre’s “Naughty Boy” almost feels like a parody because he can’t keep pace with the beat. The appeal of Bandman and Mcvertt’s style is more than just the sound—it also offers a glimpse at how a younger generation is putting its touch on music they lived with in their childhood.
Of course, social media is a major element, like it has been for Jersey club since the days of Myspace. This time around it’s TikTok, where dance videos abound. And there are few styles that are more fun to dance to than Jersey club. Just ask Mcvertt. Before he teamed up with Bandmanrill, the producer was more concerned with the biweekly dance battles at Conant Park in Hillside, New Jersey than his SoundCloud plays. “I was a fiend for dancing,” says the 18-year-old, while shutting off his game of Madden at home in Brick City. Mcvertt was introduced to Jersey club at a friend’s birthday party in the fourth grade. “The party was packed with kids grooving to Jersey club pillar DJ Lilman, but it was a culture shock for Mcvertt, who had never come across the genre in his Guinean household. “I went home and searched up every DJ I could find,” he recalls. “I been dancing to it since then.”
By 15, he was up on the game. Influenced by giants of the form like Lil C4, DJ Big-O, DJ Jayhood, and DJ PoppaDubb, he began to make club beats of his own as Mcvertt, a name inspired by his first favorite rapper, Lil Uzi Vert. The instrumentals were mostly used to backdrop his dance battles, but as he developed his sound—based around nonstop gun clicks; samples that pull from R&B, rap, and pop culture; and BPMs that reach as high as 180—he began to use battles as a promotional tool for unreleased beats.
The connection with Bandmanrill came about unexpectedly. “I never expected anyone to rap on one of my beats,” says Mcvertt. They were strictly meant for dancing. Prior to “Heartbroken,” Bandman was a comedian and TikToker who moonlighted as a rapper, and the single was a result of him fooling around on one of Mcvertt’s beats. But it worked, so they kept going. Since then, Mcvertt has only gotten better, sampling Beethoven on Bandman’s heart-racing “Bandthoven,” or flipping a Giveon ballad on Zahsosaa’s “Stripper Anthem.”
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Even with all the rappers now knocking on Mcvertt’s door for a club beat—including, he says, his early idol Uzi—he still seems more focused on his dancing rep. His eyes light up when he talks about a return to competition, and he even throws a challenge to dance rivals the Philly Goats: “We better than them niggas for real,” he says, smiling through his braces. Jersey Club is made for dancing. Good rap songs are a bonus.
Live rap report: Navy Blue comes into his own onstage
The first time I saw Navy Blue rap live was in 2019 in the Lower East Side. He nervously paced back and forth across the stage, often closing his eyes or looking off to the side for support from his friends. Since then, he’s released a few must-hear albums and became one of the most exciting rappers in New York’s underground, all while the pandemic made it hard to perform. But last Friday at Manhattan’s storied Bowery Ballroom, he made it clear that he’s spent some of the past few years working on his live show, too.
Navy was feeling himself as he took the stage, and later told the white people in the crowd to stop yapping during his verses. For over an hour, Navy rattled off tracks from Song of Sage, Navy’s Reprise, along with a few woozy unreleased joints. “Ritual” got the biggest reaction, the crowd erupting during the opening lines: “Mindin’ my business tryna die of old age.” Throughout the show he stood dead center, looking everyone right in their eyes.
Brazy: “Selecta”
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Whenever the Lagos-based rapper and singer Cruel Santino (formerly known as Santi) releases music, I find myself doing deep dives into the catalogs of everyone on his guest list. I first heard the Ghanaian upstart Amaarae on his 2019 album Mandy & the Jungle, and his latest record Subaru Boys: FINAL HEAVEN introduced me to Brazy, who lights up the banging intro. “SELECTA,” her most recent solo track, is just as good. She smoothly switches flows from a monotone delivery that sounds like she’s lethargically rapping through a megaphone to sweet-voiced croons. The beat is a rollercoaster, too. Crackling percussion and festival horns set the bouncy mood, while airy dance breaks punch things up.
Throwback rapper movie corner: 1998’s Caught Up
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I stumbled into Caught Up while scrolling through the filmography of journeyman character actor Bokeem Woodbine, who’s been featured in everything from Crooklyn to Ray to Spider-Man: Homecoming over the last 30 years. When I saw that he starred in a surrealist neo-noir alongside LL Cool J and Snoop Dogg in the late ’90s, I needed to see what they were up to. The answer turned out to be jack shit.
Snoop pops up for a cameo sputtering nonsense to Bokeem, who is a distressed ex-con trying to get his life on track. Later, LL turns up as the boyfriend of Bokeem’s ex, but his scene doesn’t even seem to take place on the same set as the rest of the movie. I suppose that’s one of the best parts about rapper’s in movies: They’re often casted for no clear reason other than to trick viewers into giving it a chance. This one turned out to be entertaining enough. Cynda Williams—known for Spike Lee’s jazz melodrama Mo’ Better Blues and Carl Franklin’s sizzling noir One False Move—is a firecracker, and the soundtrack has some heat on it, too. Check Snoop Dogg and Kurupt’s funky DJ Quik-produced theme!
Speaking off LL throwbacks…
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The most unnerving villainous laugh you’ll hear this week isn’t in the new Batman movie—it’s in the opening seconds of CEO Trayle’s “Rendezvous.” The way Trayle uses his shapeshifting flow to rattle off threats brings to mind the more sinister side of Chief Keef, and like Keef, Trayle is a student of Gucci. He spent his first 13 years in the Bronx, then Alabama, before settling in Atlanta, where his style is truly indebted. “Rendezvous” even has one of those horn-blaring beats that would fit right in on a 2000s Gucci tape (it’s co-produced by longtime ATL staple Dun Deal). Yeah, it’s heavy on influences, but how many rappers could pull off that cartoonish cackle and still make you take the rest of the song seriously?
Real Boston Richey: “Keep Dissing”
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Michigan-style beats continue to invade Florida’s rap scene. For a minute now, rappers like Goldenboy Countup, Bobby Fishscale, and Whoppa Wit Da Choppa have adopted funky, piano-backed instrumentals into their sound, and now Tallahassee’s Real Boston Richey is joining them. On “Keep Dissing,” Richey rides a brooding beat that would suit an Icewear Vezzo tape. That out-of-town influence doesn’t drown out Richey’s regional idiosyncrasies; his drawl makes every word feel slurred, and he has a natural melody even though he’s not singing. Lyrically, he has a lot of the same problems as the drill-inspired scene across the way in Jacksonville, where nothing ever seems to stick out. That doesn’t matter that much, though, because Florida flows and Michigan beats are a weirdly good match. The fast remix takes it up a notch, too.
