The self-proclaimed “greatest boy band since One Direction,” aka Brockhampton, took the music world by storm with their trilogy of albums, Saturation I, II and III.
The group was riding high on a nationwide tour when they suddenly decided to drop one of their key members, Ameer Vann, and cancel the rest of the tour. This occurred in the wake of several women accusing Vann of sexual misconduct, which prompted the group to release a statement via Twitter saying they had been lied to and cancelled their tour to “go home and regroup.”
Vann’s removal from the group was announced in May 2018. In December 2018, rapper Dom McLennon of Brockhampton tweeted that Vann had also set up his friend to be robbed, something Vann told him after he was removed from the group.
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While Vann was not charged with anything, it is hard to argue he is in the wrong given his lack of attempts to defend himself, and the accounts of the women who said Vann mistreated them.
The issue of Vann’s removal is polarizing, and he has been almost totally inactive on the internet since his removal for over a year. That is, until now.
Sept. 18, Vann released his debut solo album “Emmanuel.” The album did not shy away from all of the drama with Brockhampton, and Vann got right into the meat of the situation on the first and title track of the album “Emmanuel.”
The following lines on the song directly speak to the situation with Brockhampton.
“It’s so hard to say I’m sorry it’s so hard to self reflect/… I’m still runnin’ out of friends steady runnin’ the past/.”
Vann also speaks to his relationship with his girlfriend on the song.
“Had a girl, she was a goddess, I fucked up and had to lose her/.”
The remainder of the title track is both a reflection on the mistakes Vann made, coupled with grim, aggressive lyrics about suicide and depression.
For the remainder of the album, Vann delivers his account of the situation and never excuses his actions, but also doesn’t apologize to Brockhampton or make any attempt to reconcile their relationship.
On the song “Pop Trunk,” Vann addresses Brockhampton in the second person, calling them “centipedes,” and saying, “you ain’t no friend to me.” He also says he is “not a boy in a band,” but instead, “more than a man,” which is likely a response to Dom McLennon’s bars from Brockhampton’s newest album “Ginger,” where he raps, “pass the weight off to your friends and never face the truth/ because you never learned how to be a man.”
For fans who were missing Vann’s deep voice and hard-hitting style of rap, “Emmanuel” delivers just that. For fans who simply wanted to hear Vann’s side of the story, “Emmanuel” also does that in a bold way. The project is also riddled with religious metaphors, references to suicide, violence, drugs and alcohol.
He has made a project here that is brutally honest in portraying his current state of mind.
