There are artists who have cult followings, and then there is 2hollis.
The underground rapper-slash-producer has been quietly gaining traction since he started self-releasing albums in 2022, but since inking a deal with Interscope and dropping his major label debut ‘star’ this year, he’s gone stratospheric. At the end of a year that’s been undoubtedly massive, 2hollis wraps up the European leg of the ‘star’ tour with a sold-out show at Brixton Academy.
So here we are, outside the venue approximately an hour before he’s due on stage, and the queue is still wrapped around the block. Most fans don a black Adam-Ant-esque stripe across their nose and cheekbones in line with Hollis’ current stage makeup, odd ones wear a long blonde wig to match his ‘do too.
Inside, excitement reaches fever pitch when the one set adornment – a giant inflatable white tiger – is revealed. Obviously, it’s nothing compared to when 2hollis arrives. Bounding on stage to ‘flash’, looking like a very high fashion wizard in his Alexander McQueen cape, the track’s chorus refrain of “Holli wanna be a star” feels less like a mission statement and more like a prophecy fulfilled in the months since its release.
The show comes to a halt (for the first time) after things get too rowdy during the unreleased ‘DOGS’, and he leaves the stage while, erm, rain sounds play, presumably to calm things down a bit. This happens several times throughout the night, and each time Hollis returns, he’s wearing less and less clothing until he’s down to just his jeans. When you’ve got a set this rammed full of favourites, though, chill vibes weren’t to be expected.
And it is back-to-back hits, too, with no let-up on the energy as he rattles through signature bangers like ‘trauma’, ‘poster boy’ and ‘two bad’ in the first half. Although 2hollis has made his name as a producer as much as a performer, his knack for crafting a massive beat really shines through when they’re lasered up and blasted out in Brixton’s huge hall.
With an already hefty catalogue to sift through, Hollis does a fine job of picking out the tracks that best represent every one of his sides. There’s the cocksure, Drake-if-he-was-produced-by-SOPHIE ‘style’, the recession pop meets glitchcore ‘destroy me’, vocodered-out ‘teenage soldier’ and his most vulnerable cut, the only song played on the guitar live and not by the DJ, ‘eldest child’, every track treated with as much sincerity as the last. But despite having four full albums and a plethora of singles to choose from, 2hollis’ now iconic set closer is ‘jeans’. Seven times. It’s carnage.
2hollis’ music, an amalgamation of the internet-popular cult collectives who came before – think PC Music, Opium, and Drain Gang – attracts fans from all of those spaces. For a moment, as we’re watching teenage boys with phones in their hands, flash-on recording, clawing at the stage with as much ferocity as the girls, and seeing mosh pits form as often as we’re hearing lung-busting screams, it feels like 2hollis could (one day) be bigger than all of them.
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