The Canadian rapper proves there is much more to his music than TikTok trends.
I’ll be honest, outwith bbno$’ TikTok hits I didn’t know much about him before this gig. However, after listening to a bit more of his music, which bbno$ himself described as “ignorant but melodic”, I quickly understood what I was in for: this was music made for a fun live show. Once we arrived at King Tut’s, I was a little surprised by the crowd. Everyone was a bit older than I was expecting – think “I love Garage on a Monday night” age – and everywhere I looked was a sea of pink bbno$ beanies paired exclusively with vans or Doc Martens.
We got to the stage just in time to see the first support act, Jungle Bobby, who was a very pleasant surprise. Jungle Bobby did everything a support act should do – with a collection of fun, upbeat songs, he got the crowd hyped and seamlessly transitioned into the second support, [email protected]. Ceo seemed more relaxed than Bobby, playing around with the crowd and getting them to chant random mundane words he thought of – something that would become a running theme for the evening. He ended his set by bringing Bobby back out for the last two songs and by this point I was having a great time, with the support acts setting the bar for bbno$ rather high.
When bbno$ himself first came on it was a bit of a slow start; mostly due to the fact that there was unexpectedly less than 10 minutes between the support acts ending and the main show starting. After a little stumble on his words to begin (which he played off well), he got himself back together and by the time he reached edamame a few songs in (you’ll know this one I promise) the crowd was fully in it and the sea of beanies were now bobbing about crashing into one another.
In terms of stand out songs, the show was less focused on what song was next and more on keeping the energy high and the crowd wondering what was going to happen. Across bbno$’ 90 minute set he brought three fans on stage, signed one pair of boobs, threw multiple vegetables into the crowd, gave away a cookbook, rapped a song from his voice notes and, at every possible opportunity, took advantage of his discovery of Glasgow’s love for crowd chanting. It felt as though the purpose wasn’t just to showcase his new music but a commitment to everyone having a good night.
“It felt as though the purpose wasn’t just to showcase his new music but a commitment to everyone having a good night.”
The highlight of the night came near the end, just as the set began to slump a little (you know the point where a song starts and you say to your friend “yeah I’ll go pee now”), when bbno$ brought back out his support acts to perform his final songs: take a trip and lalala. There was such great chemistry between the three of them and as they had fun so did everyone else. They split the crowd up into teams to start some competitions, played off of one another and balanced each other’s performances well: each of them a little odd and incredibly charismatic.
I had a chance to catch up with bbno$ after the show and everything started to make a little more sense. bbno$ and Jungle Bobby had in fact known each other since 10th grade, while bbno$ had reached out to ceo during the Soundcloud stage of their respective careers: these long standing friendships really came across on stage. bbno$ also expressed that he makes music that he himself would want to listen to. His songs aren’t ones you would sing along to as they’re so lyrically dense, they’re more just for having fun with. Glasgow is, so far, the smallest venue they’ve played on their tour (albeit only their third date) but coming from the words of bbno$ himself: “If we could have the energy of that crowd carried into the bigger venues that would be the dream.”
