Rapper WebsterX takes his star power to new heights at hometown show
By the second song, sweat dripped off WebsterX’s glistening chin. About 10 minutes later, a squad of dancers stomped through a choreographed routine amid a strobe light blitz. A filmed interlude and wardrobe change came soon after. Even when he chugged water from a plastic bottle, WebsterX did it with flair.
Friday was the popular Milwaukee rapper’s most significant hometown show to date, his own headlining appearance at Turner Hall Ballroom.
But the 24-year-old born Sam Ahmed performed like he was across the street at the Bucks arena, making a hometown stop on a sold-out world tour.
That shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s watched his ascent to the top of the local music scene. Long before he had an album, WebsterX possessed unflinching drive. With his offbeat charisma, he transformed sweaty DIY shows into ecstatic rituals in his early years, then garnered national attention, and greater local awareness, starting with the cinematic “Doomsday” video in 2015.
In March, he finally dropped his debut full-length, “Daymares,” on Closed Sessions, a Chicago label at the forefront of the Windy City’s hip-hop renaissance. The album’s polished production lines up with WebsterX’s starry-eyed ambitions. From the “Stranger Things”-inspired, spooky synthesizer waves of “Lost Ones,” to the throbbing, industrial gloom of “Intuition,” each new song (performed by producer Q the Sun and drummer Christopher Gilbert Friday) sounded massive live, without once threatening to overshadow WebsterX’s X-factor.
Whether he was punching invisible demons for “Heaven’s Gates” or standing stiff at the mic spitting his thick flow for “Blue Dreams,” WebsterX infused every minute of his hourlong set with intensity and drama. But he’s no longer operating purely off of energy. There’s a greater purpose, and pacing, to the show.
Getting an excitable audience to leap through a set is a pretty easy accomplishment for WebsterX at this point. More impressive was how he corralled the crowd into a collective hush, appropriately at the start of “Quiet,” which made the song’s amped-up climax more compelling.
And the darkness of WebsterX’s new material made the moments of uplift all the brighter.
“I’m surrounded by heavy breathing demons,” he rapped on “Blue Streak,” the anxiety ultimately obliterated by swelling beats and empowered verses (“Gazing down from higher clouds/signed and sealed I’m finally found.”)
Several new songs touched on his depression and anxiety, but this was clearly relatable territory, based on the visceral reactions. When the audience sang, “Who are we we’re one” during “Skin,” it wasn’t simply reciting lyrics. Fans chanted those words like a mantra.
And so by the time “Doomsday” came out for the encore, the old song, within the context of the night, had reached new emotional depths, the Turner floor straining under the weight of the bouncing masses, with friends giving each other kisses and bear hugs at the song’s end.
WebsterX too was shaken, on the verge of tears. For a moment, he had nothing to prove, and much to be proud of.
Rappers come out to play
Friday was more than a celebration for WebsterX. It was a showcase for Milwaukee hiphop in general, with six strikingly different local rappers warming up the night. (It was originally billed as seven, but BoodahDARR was a no show.)
Only one of them, the languid Munch Lauren, struggled to light up the crowd, despite his crude “Big Money” topping the most-streamed Milwaukee songs on Spotify list.
But Zed Kenzo made her mark as one to watch, her alienlike stage presence encapsulating her eerie, alluring alternative rap. Mic Kellogg, who produced WebsterX’s lush “Lately,” gleefully embraced the spotlight with his own glossy, uplifting hip-hop.
The bill’s “veteran” Klassik previewed trippy R&B and jazzy hip-hop from a forthcoming project. Teenage rapper Kane showed how confident he’s become since co-founding Freespace, the free Riverwest concert series for high schoolers, with WebsterX in 2015. And riveting newcomer Taj Raiden cut through her tongue-twisting verses with ferocious death metal screams.
Individually, and collectively, they illustrated the hunger and heart of the city’s hip-hop scene, a scene that’s never had as much talent and potential as it does right now.