The Under-Underground: Live at Trans-Pecos With Vax and Yves

By Jagger van Vliet

These days, it seems like every music fan wants to know what’s coming next. It takes one viral song—sometimes just a snippet—for an artist to land a major record deal. It’s only natural that fans would go searching for the untapped, the undiscovered: The ever-elusive Underground. The only trouble is that a 21-year-old is already geriatric in the eyes of the next generation. It’s a fast-moving world, made all the faster by a merciless turnover rate. Rappers blow up, burn out, triumphantly return, and fade into irrelevance, sometimes all within the span of a year.

So tonight, my mission is to get some answers—to infiltrate a world of X’s drawn on hands and find out exactly what is coming next. Who will the crowds be cheering for at the world tours of tomorrow? Who will be topping the charts in the new era? If you ask me, my money is on the handful of teenagers currently performing at Trans-Pecos.

It’s a surreal feeling to be one of the oldest people here tonight. It’s crucial that I don’t let this affect my report. Putting aside your pride is the first, and most crucial step to discovering any “next-big-thing. But it still takes a minor ego death to admit that whatever you think you know is probably dead wrong.

Today, the underground rap scene has become a bit of a sore spot for anyone on the older side of the generational divide. For much of Gen Z, this is the first time they’ve started to feel the undeniable passing of time; the inevitable beginnings of that insidious thought: It-was-better-when-I-was-young.

Much of Gen Z is now old enough to have been fully conscious through the rise of modern rage; a genre that has come to define underground collectives. It’s a sound largely characterized by distorted 808s, synth-riddled beats, and vocals that mirror any of the various statesmen of rage: Playboi Carti, Ken Carson, Destroy Lonely. But by now, years have passed and rage is a reference point rather than the blueprint. Now, young artists are starting to push the envelope; developing offbeat vocal effects or embracing maximalist beats. The times are changing, there’s no doubt about it.

When I first shuffle into Trans-Pecos, the openers, Onyx and sevenk, are already performing. Their music is turbulent, albeit familiar; an admixture of sounds that I loosely pinpoint to various artists from the early 2000s and late 2010s. A passionate tangle of fans are moshing in the pit, and I can feel the floorboards warping beneath me. Say what you will about some openers, but Onyx is a serious performer. This is his first time at Trans-Pecos, but if he’s feeling nervous, you can’t tell.

Personally, I love what I’m seeing. This is real stage presence. It’s honest-to-God crowd control. For artists so young, you have to wonder where they honed their skills. My sneaking suspicion is that they effectively grew up, like so much of Gen Z, on live performances of artists like Playboi Carti. They learned from musicians whose whole performing ethos was built around spectacle. Who cares if a backing track is playing or if half the lyrics are incoherently howled? It’s about that red-hot feeling in your spine.

It’s about the bliss of a moshpit. It’s about pure fucking energy. Backstage, Onyx tells me, “I’m not gonna lie, I also take a lot of inspiration from my friends.”

He’s wearing an asymmetric black jacket, and everyone around him is similarly fitted out. This has to be the most stylish green room that Trans Pecos has ever seen. Everywhere you look, it’s nothing but black leather, glittering chains, and leopard print. This is rockstar territory, no doubt about it. You can blame the digital age for many things, but damn if these kids don’t have their aesthetics on lock. “I appreciate the art in everything that I see, ” Onyx tells me.

It’s 9 o’clock, and by now it’s almost time for Yves to take the stage. The 19-year-old rapper is sitting in a tight circle with his friends and the other headliner, Vax. It’s an oddly wholesome thing to witness. It strips away the moment, and for a second I’m watching a high-school friend group discussing their futures. The only difference is that these kids are clearly destined for something greater. They’re not talking about post-grad life or settling down. They’ve got their eyes set on big deals and bigger stages. “I’m working to get the fuck out of Massachusetts, ” says Yves, “Right now I’m tryna get a new crib. I just bought a car. And we got the new album on the way. All Star 2 coming soon.”

Yves is remarkably calm. Every now and again he smiles, and I catch a glimpse of the glittering diamonds on his teeth. All said, for a 19-year-old, he’s handling the sounds of a crowd chanting his name like a certified veteran.

“I’ve performed here a few times now, ” Yves says, “For me, it’s nothing new… I’m just ready to rock out.”

All night, I’ve been trying to dissect the music; eagerly pulling apart every track I hear on a hunt for its sonic DNA. What references can I catch? What artist from my own adolescence does this sound like? But when I ask Yves who his musical influences are, he gives me pause. “Most of the time I just listen to me. I don’t have any outside influences. I don’t want nobody to say I sound like somebody else… People need to know, every time I drop a song, it’s gonna be something different. I’m never gonna be put in a box, I never want to be put under a label…”

Yves doesn’t want to be compared. He doesn’t need a clear line of inspiration. Instead, the new generation’s mentality seems to be fiercely individual, unique to the point of pride. In the coming years, it’s clear that the modern landscape will belong to the young artists who reject the whole idea of genre; of rigid categorisation. “As far as fashion, I fuck with the way Rema dresses and Destroy Lonely too. ”I watch Yves stop to think for a second before he adds, “But it’s become a thing where everyone is trying to dress like them now. I can’t get with that fully, so I try to incorporate new styles and new art into my own, personal look. ”

At every opportunity, Yves is sure to make it known that he is very much his own thing. He tells me that most people are still focused on the distorted scene, but that the future is more melodic. He explains that New York is still the endgame for many artists like him, but that true talent can come from anywhere.

Onstage, Yves is the only artist who elects to start his performance totally solo. It’s just him, and that’s all anyone needs. Yves rips through his catalogue at breakneck pace, the crowd riding the wave right along with him. When he needs the energy to be higher, it simply happens without him speaking a word. When he wants the crowd to form a better moshpit, they shape up like footsoldiers.

But the undisputed, standout moment comes when Yves tells the crowd to put their phone lights up. Instantly, dozens of flashes drown out Trans-Pecos’ red stage lights. It’s an otherworldly atmosphere; the same exact venue only hazier and now slightly shimmering. Even through the smoke, I can see Yves’ smile flashing through.

He launches into a song that is, objectively, more dance than trap. It’s no surprise that he tells me his dream collaboration would be with PARTYNEXTDOOR. And the crowd—a generation most adults insist “don’t dance” —is dancing harder than I’ve seen all night. Yves might be right on the pulse; the youth just wants something different, something that only they can create.

Back in the greenroom, headliner Vax tells me, ” Hard enough.”

“There’s a lot of artists out here who just aren’t trying. It’s a bold assertion, especially considering this kid is younger than Yves. He’s only 17, but Vax is no freshman. He’s already performed at Rolling Loud, amassed 146,000 listeners on Spotify, and as of 6 hours ago, he released a new single, AWOL. In person, he’s got on a slick, black shirt, fully unbuttoned to reveal some admittedly solid hardware: a metal key hanging from his neck, a Chrome Hearts wallet chain, and a massive silver belt buckle. “These other rappers need to get their shit together bruh, ” Vax says, “You gotta look good. You gotta look the part.”

Once again, I notice that this generation is constantly aware of its own aesthetics: the visual language they’re building around the music itself. I have to imagine this must be the unavoidable byproduct of social media. It’sno longer enough to maintain an aesthetic through red-carpet appearances and music videos. Now, artists like Vax consider their own personal passion to be a part of the aesthetic. It’s a mantra. The hype is just another part of their universe.

“You really gotta be on your shit… foot on the gas… pedal to the metal, ” Vax says,

“That’s what me and Yves have been doing all year, overly. We’ve been dropping consistently. Doing hella shows. That’s it you know, we rock out. ”When Vax takes the stage, it becomes clear that the crowd was holding out. They somehow unlock a new level of hype as Vax belts out the lyrics to Bobby S. With every song, the crowd presses in more and more.

All of the openers and Vax’s close friends have since crowded onto the stage, surrounding him. It’s a tight squeeze, but everyone is singularly focused on Vax. Earlier, he told me that his influences ranged from Playboi Carti to Young Thug (whose first mixtape came out when Vax was just 2 years old by the way). When Vax performs, you can see every bit of those inspirations and more. He knows how to get the crowd bumping. Damn-near everyone knows his lyrics.

It’s one big party, and you can’t take your eyes off the artist in the middle of it all. I’m watching from just offstage where I’m afforded a glorious vantage of the whole scene— a perfect all-encompassing shot. I can see the new-age rockstars shining under stagelights. I can also spot the far brighter lights of at least 3 live-stream camera rigs. It’s a wildly new-age tableau with a lot more smiling than I expected. Onstage and off, everyone is having a good time, and they’re not afraid to show it. This might as well be the audition for next year’s Rolling Loud, and when all is said and done, you’d be hard-pressed to leave without thinking, for once, the kids really are alright.

Photography JoJo Dejesus