If there were a prize for the most mysterious artist on the come-up right now, BROLY500! would most definitely be in with a chance of taking the trophy home. I first heard of Broly and his music in autumn of last year, after seeing his name mentioned in a couple of subreddits, but the young rapper has been creating a lot of noise recently, and his follower count on Instagram especially, has shot up vastly (by approximately 9,000 followers in two weeks on Instagram). Unfortunately for him, a lot of this attention has come from the comparisons he has drawn to a certain XXXTENTACION. In this instalment of 'On the RISE', we'll look at BROLY500!, and study why he should be up next in the rap world.
I wish I could introduce this article with some background information on Broly - such as his name, date of birth or anything. The thing is, almost nothing is known about him. We have a face, and going by his SoundCloud profile's bio, a location - Virginia, USA - but aside from that, no age or even a name to put to the face. A lot of this stems from the fact that Broly purely wants to remain anonymous, at least for the moment, which is entirely respectable. He's hosted a few live sessions on Instagram, and has previously posted a Q&A on the same platform, but has always been careful to remain vague in any questions that may compromise his personal life. What can be concluded is that he appears to be a student at university/college, which he seems to attend with his apparent best friend, fellow rapper and frequent collaborator, known as Stokely (@stonecoldstoke on Instagram).
Going from Broly's Q&A answers, there are some other things we can learn about him, and his outlook on life in the industry. His answers to the multiple questions of "How old are you?" varied, from "500 degrees celsius", to "5 double 0", to "1000-500=500", so that detail remains a mystery. One of the classic questions "Who inspired you to rap?" gained Broly's answer of "No one to be honest, I just liked music and figured that I know I can sing very well.", but he also added in a later question that his biggest inspirations are his mum and close friends. Following on from this, we find out that Broly started making music in late 2015/early 2016, and when asked "How often do you make music?", he answered "I write words in my notes every day, so weekly it's never released and it's all for fun."
For those wondering what kind of a name BROLY500! is, Broly gives an explanation. He says that "Broly because someone called me that when I got mad, so I was like yeah I like that. Then 500 is from Nascar, the Daytona 500." An interesting answer I found though is that when asked what he looked like, Broly not only directed the asked to his fan page (@brolly500 on Instagram), but added "I guess you all need a face to place the music with but I'm trying to break that norm of people wanting a face with a song."
Amongst all of these fairly standard questions though, there are a few mentions of XXXTENTACION, and the fact that a lot of the attention that Broly is gaining at the moment, seems to be coming from people concluding that he and X sound alike. When asked about what he makes of all the comparisons, Broly himself answered with "A lot of you all are broken records no disrespect." and "It just shows me how people feel the need to say that same thing over and over, it makes those individuals look stupid you know?" When asked if X had any impact on his current music, he said "I don't like talking about others impacts on me. But to answer your question no. It just so happened that one song sounded familiar to his fan base." and when asked if he thought that he sounded like X, he said "No I do not think I do. And I don't. I don't think that I sound like any other human being because we are all different."
I will say that admittedly, there are one or two songs, namely 'I'm in real big trouble' and perhaps 'Half Hot Half Cold', where Broly does sound remarkably similar to X. However, there's more to Broly than just a supposed 'X clone'. His outlook on the music industry is remarkably refreshing, and whilst he has an air of confidence around him, he remains grounded and down to earth, and reiterates several times through his social media that he only makes music for fun, and that people enjoying it is just a bonus. Broly has been making music for nigh on three years now, and it's almost a certainty that he didn't set out to sound like X. It's only been since people have been stealing Broly's music and passing it off on YouTube as 'unreleased X snippets' that he's now started drawing major comparisons. In this instance, I would shift a percentage of the blame to the community of X's fans, who will most likely have discovered these YouTube snippets, and then either descended on Broly to criticise him for 'copying' their favourite artist, or to depend on him in the hopes that he'll drop more music like this to act as a replacement for their favourite rapper. X is gone, and as tragic as it is, we all know and must accept this, but it does not in any way mean that Broly has, or is trying to, fill the unquestionably large hole he has left. Broly is still his own artist, and to define him by another's art is to insult the effort he puts into recording and releasing music.
In terms of music thankfully, we have a lot at our disposal, unlike the information surrounding the man himself. To date, Broly has released six EPs, titled 'The Drop Off', 'RED ALERT (PLANET SPLITTER EXCLUSIVE)', 'Sora Aura', 'The storm approaches', 'The quiet before the storm' and 'TO THE MOON AND BACK'. Only three of these projects are readily available on SoundCloud now however, as far as my research goes, but one hero on Reddit (u/GlassPlatform) has compiled Broly's entire discography on Google Drive, so if you'd like to check it out click here.
His music style varies quite frequently, with 'Half Hot Half Cold' and I'm in real big trouble' locking down on a mellow, trap sound, with fairly mumbled lyrics, whereas 'Wendigo Woods' has an eerie, sad rock feel to it. 'NETHERWORLD' is screaming, almost heavy metal-like, whilst 'You will disappear/Killing me softly' is almost two genres at once - with a disturbing, aggressive style of lyrical delivery over a mellow, harmless beat. With so many styles and deliveries, and a voice that manages to sound different but yet so familiar in every song, it's likely that there will be at least one song in Broly's discography that everyone will find themselves enjoying.
Broly has a fairly devout following all things considered, currently amassing around 25,000 followers on SoundCloud, 18,000 monthly listeners on Spotify (with only one song, with over 225,000 plays on the platform), as well as the small subreddit of 200 members. His largest song, probably thanks to the X comparisons, is the aforementioned 'I'm in real big trouble', with over 1.2 million plays on SoundCloud, closely followed by 'Half Hot Half Cold', which has 985,000.
His most recent EP 'TO THE MOON AND BACK', consisted of six tracks, and had more of a mostly modern rap/R&B feel to it, varying through both strong and sombre lyrical deliveries, and catchy, simple but trap-like instrumentals throughout. This is the type of hip-hop that I currently associate Broly with the most, and the one that I'd say he thrives in the most given the style of his natural voice, and the way it compliments the instrumentals that he uses, but of course his best style and delivery is totally subjective and up for interpretation.
As for future music, Broly has currently left social media so as to prepare for his next project, which is due to release sometime in late summer. The name and of his next album, and any of the singles possibly preluding it are currently unknown and Broly himself admitted that he's not sure what day or month it'll drop. However, we can be sure that whatever the project contains, it's sure to be an exciting one, and it'll be interesting to see what approach Broly takes, and what direction he'll look to take his music in with this one. The only way is up for Broly after all.
The real question that lies with Broly's rise to fame, should he go all the way and make it big in the world of hip-hop, is will he manage to shrug these comparisons to X? Or will he forever be burdened as 'that guy' who 'made it famous because he sounds like X'? For the sake of Broly's mental health and his progress and growth as an artist, we'll be hoping that it's the former. Regardless of any similarities though, one cannot deny that BROLY500! is an immensely interesting artist, and given the vast vocal range and versatility he's displayed as an artist so early on in his career, alongside the drive and confidence he's displayed in his own musical ability, it's no surprise that he is most definitely On the RISE.
If you'd like to check out any of BROLY500!'s music, he's on SoundCloud and Spotify, but currently only has one song officially available on the latter. You can also find him on Instagram, @brolysfuneral, and Twitter, @brolysfuneral as well.