It’s somewhat fitting that the theme for the 2019 Yams Day is WWE wrestling. While it pays homage to the late Yams’ favorite sport and pastime, it perfectly encapsulates today’s concert culture for the millennial hypebeast.
After wading in the brisk weather of one of the colder Thursday’s of Jan. 2019, 20-somethings and late 90s babies flocked to their assigned sections of Brooklyn’s Barclays Center to pay tribute to the founder member and enjoy A$AP Rocky’s “Injured Generation Tour.”
The crowd is more salt than peppered, even more than a Lil Wayne concert. Puffer jackets decorate the rows of stadium chairs. And young clear girls donning cornrows, tube tops, cropped shirts, and a rainbow of colored, high-waisted camo pants weave in and out of the aisles. Boys in beanies, florescent skullcaps, and cross-body bags are seen down below migrating in huddles by the main stage and sub-arena masquerading as a wrestling ring. If you needed a gentle reminder of just how influential black culture can be, you found it here.
Rocky, the mob’s fierce leader, encouraged the crowd to form a pit in the center of the venue. And just like WWE, a single spotlight highlights the pit as shirtless boys crash into one another, limbs failing and heads bobbing. It surely looks like it hurts, but as mentioned several times throughout the night, it’s all for show, and for fun of course.
Each mosh is ricocheted off of one another so much so that from the lower level (which is actually one level above the floor), looked like a violent sea rolling up to shore.
The only thing keeping these kids up, besides the body of the person beside them, seems to be the revolving doors of performers which included a long list of ragers like Ski Mask the Slump God, Flatbush Zombies, Joey Bada$$, Metro Boomin, and of course A$AP Mob.
Weed fogs the air as fans light up to commemorate the fallen members of hip-hop. That includes more than Yams today, as XXXTentacion recently passed away in 2018. And it wouldn’t be a night if someone didn’t yell “Free Tekashi 6ix9ine.” “No one deserves to be locked up,” it was stated.
“Millennial” and “hypebeast” haven’t always found the perfect harmony, but when they do it produces a unique experience. Black boy joy is one of the better products. A$AP Ferg and a variety of other friends and family partake in a fun-loving game of dance-tag, flinging their arms and bodies around as Lil Wayne and Swizz Beatz’s “Uproar” cuts on. Other jams of the present and past like Crime Mob’s “Knuck If You Buck” and Kendrick Lamar’s “M.a.A.d city” also blast through the speakers, while the n-word echoes through the spot.
Millennials are fearless. What’s more courageous than the kids entering the pits of destruction, are the musical acts that run off the cliff of the stage into the audience. They are so certain their fans will catch them, they often dive head first, flipping into piles of extended arms.
The surprise guests of the night, Meek Mill and Soulja Boy, are perhaps the most trending acts in the social realm. Soulja Boy reenacts comedic interview from The Breakfast Club, reciting “Draakee” as he walks from one end of the stage to the next. Meek creates a “moment,” performing “Dreams and Nightmares (Intro).”
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Bedtime is approaching but there’s not a yawn in sight around this crew. If you’re looking for the millennials, you can find them turning up at Barclays.