I make my way through the dense, sweaty crowd of intoxicated youths. Some let me squeeze by without much issue, others I have to stop and explain that I’m a journalist just trying to get to the photo pit. They begrudgingly allow me to continue my disgusting march to the front of the venue. I feel utterly geriatric in this sea of juvenescence (for the record, I’m 27). When I reach the foot of the stage, I turn to see MTelus packed to the gills with people preemptively holding up their phones for 2hollis’ entrance. I consider how horrifying it would feel to have that many eyes and iPhone camera lenses on me. Against the backdrop of a giant white three-dimensional tiger, 2hollis steps out on stage. The simplicity of his outfit, in contrast to his extreme height and incredibly blonde hair, makes him both angel and alien. The smear of black eyeliner beneath his eyes betrays his imposing aura and reveals him to be a human boy.
A juxtaposition is quickly formed between an audience that is recording every moment of the performance and moshing extremely hard simultaneously. This makes perfect sense, given 2hollis’ deeply online origin story, blowing up on TikTok while managing to remain surprisingly anonymous. His sound pays homage to the legacy of caucauphenous hyper pop and moody cloud rap that came before him, while continuing to refine this fusion into a dangerously danceable meditation on big feelings.
The crowd gets so rowdy that 2hollis stops the set at least five times to ask the audience to take a step back. Intensity of this type is not uncommon in the rage genre, but the concern for audience safety is refreshing.
For the most part, the musical performance itself is standard fare for a cloud rap adjacent artist, a solo performer armed with only autotune and a backing track. However, it was 2hollis’ embodiment that stood out to me. Watching him onstage felt like catching a glimpse of someone dancing alone in their bedroom. Intimate, fleeting, and reckless. The authenticity in his movements feels pertinent to his predominantly Gen-Z audience, who have grown up in the chronically online era, where expressing oneself with such abandon risks being cringe.
Standout moments from the set include his performance of “cliché,” which brought me to tears watching a couple dance to the song beside me. The intensity of “poster boy” left me feeling like a piece of rock being pressed into a diamond between the heat in the room, the pressure of bodies around me and the flashing lights. After relentless movement and pure hype, 2hollis surprises us all with his only acoustic track, “eldest child.” In that moment, 2hollis is something different altogether; he’s more than a mysterious conduit for some of the most danceable songs of our generation. Without autotune, he’s a talented musician with a voice, a unique human voice. Over and over during the performance, I am reminded of the humanity in the room and onstage. I would be remiss not to mention his encore, in which he played and subsequently replayed his hit song “jeans” three times. I don’t care what anyone says, it was awesome.
I left the show with optimism about the younger half of my generation, that there is still a deep desire for moving and feeling. That we still want to move intensely and feel deeply together. Long live the rage.
Photos by Jake Friesen
