HeRobust
The Stage, Miami
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Better Than: Having some sick trap artist in from Atlanta, only to watch him leave.
Miami crowds are famous for their love of House music, and moombahton is quickly becoming all the rage, but it wouldn't be fair to say Miami hasn't had one foot in the trap for some time.
After all, this is the land of the Cocaine Cowboys and the Tony Montanas. The 305's trap runs deep and there are still plenty of streets a girl shouldn't walk down by herself after dark. And damn do we know how to dance.
So, if Atlanta's rising trap-star HeRobust was going to move anywhere, he should be one happy motherfucker to end up right here.
See also:
-Concert Review: Trap Takes Over! Flosstradamus and DJ Sliink Run Shit
-It's a Trap! An 11-Part History of Trap Music, From DJ Screw to Gucci Mane to Flosstradamus
Last night, HeRobust, nee Hayden Kramer, made his Miami debut at the Stage to a modest crowd of trapaholics. The vibe was cool and chill, laidback and fun as the opening set from Y-Diz got the crowd loose and their limbs flying.
Another local, albeit not so new to the scene, Y-Diz dropped psychedelic melodies and textures of lots of bassy tracks and styles. Using a midi sampler, he threw his own crazy flavor onto the rhythms and drops, switching up the tempo here and there to keep the crowd on its toes.
By 12:30, HeRobust took the stage and greeted the crowd of new faces he'll most likely be seeing a lot more of.
"What's up y'all? How are you doing Miami?" he said into the mic. "I'm HeRobust, I'm from Atlanta, and when I say 'Wht's up Atlanta,' I usually get some applause, so what's up Miami!"
He dropped right into his edit of Lil Wayne's "A Milli," bouncing behind the decks and mouthing along to the Austin Power samples. He went hard from the get-go, moving into a string of edits and originals, including "Round of Applause," "Bass Canon," "When You Was on Myspace" and "Mercy."
He never let the vibe down once, building up the crowd who, we must note with some awesomeness, were all dancing and grooving hard to the beat.
"Do you know that I just moved here?" he asked. "I live here now. You're going to see me a lot I hope. I hope to make friends with a lot of you."
And it's true. Kramer has only been in Miami for about a month, though a lot of his time has been spent travelling to different one-off shows across the country. Soon, he'll be kicking off on official tours supporting Big Gigantic, Gramatik and Cherub, but he's very excited to be a new face in our city.
"I definitely want to have a presence. There are some awesome artists down here that I'm hoping to hook up with," he said, feeling optimistic about his new home. " I feel like I just put in a lot of groundwork contributing to the foundation of kind of an underground culture (in Atlanta) that appreciates this kind of music. Now I'm moving here, and I don't have the lay of the land yet, but from this event, it seems like there in a really similar stage."
Kramer noted that the big genres in town are things like house, moombah and dub. But he really likes the chance to be a part of something fresh and new, not yet tricked out or overplayed.
"While that's not the thriving scene that's going to sell out, it's kind of more exciting because of the underground nature of it," he said. "And you're only dealing with the people that are really passionate about it. So that's cool."
He continued to drop massive trap bangers throughout his set, most of which were original tracks, edits and remixes, or "Busted" as he calls them. But with the incredible amount of music HeRobust puts out, it's unsurprising. He could fill a whole hour and a half with his work ethic.
"It's not healthy, I'll start there," he said. "I pretty much do it when I'm awake and when I'm not eating or bathing. Of course I go to shows, and I do have friends ... But it's because it's what I love to do. And to be honest, when I come out to a show, most people come to a show and they see a DJ kill it and they're like 'Oh my god, I want to dance.' When I see a DJ kill it, I'm like, 'Oh my god, I want to go home and make a track.' So it kind of just spirals out of control until I'm basically an addict."
And the best part? He gives away most of his music for free.
"I put out my music for free because at this stage, I really just want people to hear it," he said. "You could make some money selling it, but what's really most important is people are listening to it. Free music, it's the future."
He did his new crowd of Miami fans right by dropping a ton of new, previously unheard tracks. He has a lot in the works this next year. Lined up are loads of collaborations with artists like gLAdiator, Two Fresh, Big Gigantic, Atlanta homie Mayhem and Kansas City's Leonard Dstroy. He even has a track coming out Monday on the latest Trapaholics mixtape featuring Future, and for a rising trapstar, that's kind of a big deal.
"You heard it first from HeRobust, trapaholics is a good look," he said laughing.
Still, he knows he won't be able to escape the Miami flavor now that he's settling in.
"I'm more open to different kinds of music than people think," he said. "A lot of my older fans know that because I have a diverse catalogue. But a lot of the new fans are putting me in the trap category, which is cool and hopefully they'll come along the ride when I continue to branch out. House and moombah is really what people are excited about down here, and I know a lot of my fans are not going to be happy about me embracing that but I love music and it's only a matter of time. I want to do it all, except for country."
He finished his set with some more unreleased tracks and busted remixes and left the crowd wanting more to dance to. But that's good, because he's going to be around a while.
"I'll always miss Atlanta. Atlanta will always be my home, and every time I play Atlanta, I will save something special for them," he said. "But it's cool to be here. I like the weather, I like the beach ... I can already tell the people here I'm going to be friends with."
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