Ghetto Gods Listening Show

16th February 2022

On the 29th of January, EARTHGANG were due to drop their latest work, Ghetto Gods. While going through all the new music that came out that day, I had a look for it and it was nowhere to be found. Later that day, my friend Annabelle Kline, founder of That Good Shit, posted a video with EARTHGANG and a series of live listening shows was announced across America, and luckily enough for me they were also doing a show in London. The tickets were free, first come first serve, at Colours in Hoxton. Now, while I have now heard a lot of the album, I don’t think it’d be fair to actually review the album until it’s officially out yet because I know I definitely haven’t heard everything they’ve got in store and would like some time to digest their final draft of the masterpiece that is Ghetto Gods. [Just for clarification, at the time of writing this it wasn't out yet.] I can tell you one thing though, it’s a serious contender for album of the year. Collaborations featured the usual prospects, label mates JID and Ari Lennox, and Smino, and also Baby Tate, Future, CeeLo Green, Nick Cannon and Musiq Soulchild.

The venue went pitch black as the intro to Ghetto Gods played, an aspirational monologue. There was a very brief pause as EARTHGANG erupted on the stage encouraging the crowd to put their hands up. Johnny Venus began rapping and the crowd went crazy, we’d been waiting quite a while for them to come out and when they finally did, the crowd was electric with adrenaline. WowGr8’s verse came next, what I love about EARTHGANG is the difference in personalities from both members and the ability to compliment each other’s flow and cadence. After the track ended, he thanked us for coming out and told us the album is “coming out way sooner than you even know”. [It was finally released today, so a full album review is coming soon.]

Billi featuring Future came on next, this is definitely a highlight from what we’ve heard of Ghetto Gods so far. I can definitely see moshpits happening when they actually go on tour, to this very specific song. The crowd definitely loved it. Lvl Up came on next, this song I felt really challenged that emotion when you’re moving onto bigger and better things in life, full of confidence about the steps you’re taking forward. EARTHGANG would switch between performing and playing their songs, sometimes they would chop and change mid song. But they still kept those energy levels high and that’s exactly what you want to see from people performing their album before it’s even dropped.

They would often drop anecdotes about how each song came about. Johnny Venus began to talk about how their collaboration with Musiq Soulchild came about, that he heard Just Friends on the radio and tested to see if the crowd knew it. We “passed the vibe test”, he said that some shows just didn’t know the song at all. He wanted to sample it, so they started working on the record and then they wanted to get Musiq Soulchild the record and by divine circumstance they ended up getting in the studio with him in less than 24 hours. They’ve dropped the song this week along with the release date for their album. It started off slow until the beat kicked in and you could really tell the crowd was enjoying this song, again an amalgamation of performing and playing the song to the crowd. You can really tell this is a special work of art for them, to be able to collaborate with Musiq Soulchild, someone who they deemed a Ghetto God. It’s got a catchy hook and that nostalgia factor so I definitely think it was smart to drop this as a single too.

Next they played All Eyes On Me, a single they’ve dropped during the album rollout. A song the crowd were definitely familiar with, this experience gave me an insight to what their actual tour is going to be like, where we actually know the songs and can sing along with them. It felt like we were one with them, a feeling of togetherness coming over the crowd as we sang the chorus. They played AMBEYONCÉ featuring Smino for us next. Smino’s like that ingredient you add to something that already tastes immaculate, to make it taste even better. “It’s about feeling so good you feel like Beyoncé” WowGr8 exclaimed. Definitely a song to add to the playlist you have that makes you feel confident when you walk out the door.

Next we got a real exclusive, they’d never played the collaboration with JID before. And you know that if it’s one thing EARTHGANG and JID are gonna do together, it’s deliver heat. I really hope this makes the final cut of the album, I know with the delay of the release there were a lot of pushbacks and changes. I hope they both know the crowd loved it, we were already singing along by the time the second chorus rolled around. As the track comes to a halt, they begin to talk about aligning yourself with the right people, saying that “if you keep it a hundred with yourself, the best people in your life will be around you.” They played us a song called Lie To Me, about society’s relationship with clout chasing and flexing for people who don’t care about you. A song I’m so glad they made because the message needs to be heard by the young people of today. It felt like a true listening party here, they were playing these songs and vibing out to them rather than performing them, it was a really interesting and refreshing experience as I’d never been to an event quite like it before.

Black Pearl, a song dedicated to black women, featuring Baby Tate was the next song they played for us. The beat dropped and you could tell they were both really passionate about this song, singing along to the “ooh ooh” adlib and getting us to all sing along with them. Super impressed with Baby Tate’s verse on this song, definitely feel like she has a lot of versatility within her craft. Next they performed American Horror Story. It was a song we all knew, like All Eyes On Me it had dropped in the lead up to the album release, so we were all singing along and enjoying ourselves with them. Then they told us the new song they made was on shrooms and it was called Power and it featured CeeLo Green and Nick Cannon. It felt incredibly cinematic and I was really pleasantly surprised with CeeLo’s verse. I think this was a good pick to perform, the beat switch is killer too. Nick Cannon has some motivational dialogue on this song and all the pieces of the puzzle come together to create this movie-like masterpiece.

The next song started with a guy speaking in Patois, followed by the lyrics “roll up another one”, a mellow song to smoke to. They played this to us and we were all just chilling and vibing, green lights dancing across the stage. It seemed to be accompanied by female backing vocals at one point, though they didn’t disclose who. Then Johnny Venus began to introduce the next song, talking about mental health and keeping strong, saying that it’s okay to cry and “black men, it’s okay to not have shit figured out”. It’s a song about checking in on your strong friends, which again is another message I think is so important for young people to hear especially considering the pandemic and numerous lockdowns we’ve gone through. This is one of the most beautiful songs on this album that they played to us that night. WowGr8 then said “I’m EARTHGANG, you are EARTHGANG, we are all EARTHGANG,” which was one of the most memorable moments of the night, really shows me how unity is one of their important values. Johnny Venus said if we were recording to send it to our friend and say that we’re thinking about them, which I thought was really comforting.

They played the outro of the album, titled Run Too and it featured Ari Lennox. The perfect way to end an album with Ari’s smooth vocals. WowGr8 ran the track back to get everyone to put their lights on their phone on, Johnny Venus sat on top of one of the speakers while the song played. Everything about this album is true to EARTHGANG’s essence, grown and mature in terms of sound and I really feel that an Ari Lennox feature is definitely the best way to conclude all of that. EARTHGANG were drinking tequila out the bottle on stage, definitely a celebratory moment for them.

Then they asked who was a day 1 fan as most artists do and proceeded to perform The F Bomb from Shallow Graves For Toys and engaged with us by going back and forth singing 'I don’t give a fuck!'They played Missed Calls from Strays With Rabies, shouting “When I say EARTH, y’all say GANG” and the crowd was hype, it was really cool to see that old EARTHGANG fans had turned up. The show definitely didn’t reach capacity, more than likely because not a lot of people knew about the show, but it was packed enough to enjoy the concert comfortably and move around without bumping into too many people. And to be fair it still felt like there was a lot of people there. They performed This Side, and we were definitely “having fun on this side”. Honestly wished I’d been to one of their Mirrorland shows too. Top Down was next and the crowd just continued to get more and more hype. Bank was probably the peak of the crowd’s excitement and engagement, Johnny Venus was jumping on stage. They performed their verses from the J.Cole song 1993 which also featured Cozz and JID. Johnny Venus exclaimed “When I say drop that, y’all say shit” before Down Bad played, I definitely wasn’t expecting them to perform verses from collaborations but I’m glad they did, Johnny Venus even went acapella at one point. Up, a song I was waiting for as their COLORS performance of this song was my introduction to EARTHGANG finally came on, another climactic moment during the night, energy from both EARTHGANG and the audience just felt so powerful and in sync. WowGr8 was even singing adlibs here and there. What an amazing end to the listening party. I felt so confident the album had definitely earned its place as a contender for rap AOTY. EARTHGANG were then kind enough to take pictures and sign things from merch they sold to books of various titles that their fans had on them.

I was already anticipating this album before the delay, but I’m even more excited for it to come out now. They switched it up between performing and playing their songs which while I wasn’t expecting, it was really interesting as they got to see the crowd reception to just hearing it how we’d hear it on a streaming platform, rather than being so caught up in performing which I thought was a one of a kind experience. I really got to see their personalities tonight, WowGr8 is goofy and has so much fun with his stage presence whereas Johnny Venus carries this smooth and suave persona. I feel like both of their energies create this extraordinary combination that’s so captivating and translates well on stage too. I’ve always loved EARTHGANG and their experimental flows and cadences and I think that’s what sets them apart from artists of their calibre. Not only do they know how to have fun with their craft but also deliver incredibly well crafted bars. I’m so excited to listen to Ghetto Gods and recommend you give it a listen too, you won’t find the same vibe anywhere else.