31 August 2023
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be Yung Gravy. Don’t let them become spoiled white frat party habitues who spit out rapidly rhythmic rhymes that demean women at every opportunity, portraying them only as targets for conquest and domination.
But if Rochester, Minn.’s, Matthew Hauri hadn’t invented Yung Gravy while a student at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, an algorithm might have. Hauri’s degree is in marketing, and it’s easy to see his dorky playboy persona as just an exploitation scam directed at those in early adolescence, be it physically, emotionally or mentally. If you have any doubts about his priorities, you can find them explained in his biggest hit: “Betty (Get Money).”
And it’s a fair assumption that Yung Gravy does clear a good amount of overhead, because he doesn’t employ musicians, just a DJ who turns the bass up to 11 so the curly-maned rapper’s misogynist lyrics don’t come out clearly in concert. But he’s certainly accrued a following, judging from the crowd of 9,474 at the Minnesota State Fair Grandstand on Wednesday evening.
If only they were treated to a more interesting show than the one offered by Yung Gravy and his Canadian compadre, bbno$ (pronounced “Baby No Money,” in case you were curious if his focus gibed with that of his Minnesota collaborator). Instead, they got a concert that never generated any momentum, mostly because almost every song among the 31 performed was stopped about two minutes in, leaving the crowd to pause and contemplate if it was over before resignedly clapping.
In some ways, Yung Gravy came off as an unintentional parody of hip-hop. The lanky rapper has no measurable stage presence, his moves reduced to striding across the stage in rhythm and bouncing on one foot in his bright white tennis shoes. On the rare occasions when he tried to sing a melody — recordings of ‘60s and ‘70s R&B and pop provided most of his backing — he left the impression that he has no particular musical talent besides being able to rap in rhythm and fashion lyrics that might seem witty if quoted on a middle school playground.
The 110-minute show was actually more like three sets smashed together, in that bbno$ offered nine songs of his own, including a couple of relatively popular ones in “Edamame” and “Lalala” that inspired rap-alongs from many a teenage boy in the crowd. But the best song of the evening was his “Help Herself,” the only time all evening when macho bravado was set aside to express genuine emotion, in this case sadness over a breakup.
Then Yung Gravy joined bbno$ for another nine-song set that made clear that both rappers have a much better time together than apart. They’ve now recorded three albums as Baby Gravy, and the two pushed the evening to its energetic peak on the satirical sex romp “You Need Jesus,” and the quite catchy “C’est La Vie.” But those tunes, too, were aborted halfway through.
The lengthy gaps between the music grew more pronounced when bbno$ exited the stage and left Yung Gravy to finish the night with 13 songs of his own. During the pauses, he tossed out water bottles and autographed Lunchable packages, his mother, Cynthia, emerging to add Froot Loops to the fling fest.
Despite the rapper periodically espousing the virtues of his home state to the crowd’s glee, I’m hard pressed to recall a Grandstand show at which the headliner seemed so palpably bored at performing. And, alas, the mood proved contagious.
Rob Hubbard can be reached at [email protected].
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