A solo performance from either Danny Brown or JPEGMAFIA would be a raucous, riotous affair. What were we supposed to do with the news earlier this year that the two would be embarking on a tandem tour on the back of their collaborative album SCARING THE HOES? Scared or not, we knew we would be there no matter what. 

DJ_Dave got the night started with a bang. Her fast breakbeat electronic style was an interesting preface to the eccentric hip-hop of the headlining duo, but she definitely knows how to hype up a crowd. For an artist with just a handful of singles available on streaming services, it’s probably safe to assume that not a lot of attendees were aware of her prior to this show. But what she lacked in notoriety ahead of time was made up for by the unreal hype that the audience exuded while she played her material. What is really cool and remarkable about her music is that it is created via a combination of live coding and DJ mixing. 

RIght before the headlining duo took stage, the audience was treated to the full version of the Pokémon theme song. Perfect intro music. By the time JPEG and Danny Brown took the stage, the audience was ready to roar. Cups, hats, shoes: if you stood in the back of the room at Roadrunner, you saw all manner of inanimate objects flying through the air. The duo kicked things off by rifling through the opening tracks of SCARING THE HOES before JPEGMAFIA took control of the stage to perform a handful of his solo tracks. Danny Brown came back out for a few more STH songs, then got a block for his own solo material. It was exciting to hear songs like “Dip” almost a decade on from their release, still banging harder than most of today’s new releases. When JPEG came back so the duo could close the night, those audience members who hadn’t already been escorted out by security were elated to hear the show’s finale before heading home into the cool air of the summer evening. 

Check out Emily Gardner’s full photo gallery from the show below.