Photo courtesey of Adam Osha 

Beast Coast is a group of hip-hop performers whose members are strictly rappers from Brooklyn, New York, including Joey Bada$$, Flatbush Zombies, The Underachievers, Nyck Caution, CJ Fly, Kirk Knight and Powers Pleasant.

They are all friends who started rapping together in high school and have gained a large following throughout the years. Each artist, or group of artists’ music, reaches such a large crowd due to the style of rap it’s engineered to sound like.

It targets the old heads with its boom bap production and choices of words in some work, and it reaches the younger crowd with the hype lyrics, loud kicks, and deep bass that’s weaved in.

The Day of

On Aug. 24, my roommate, Adam Osha, and I drove to Castleton to move in a day before move-in day. We had a big day ahead of us. Here’s our plan: move in, drive to Fitchburg to meet up with Andreas, drive to Boston, rage at the “Beast Coast” and drive back to the Burg where we’d call it a night.

We finally got our things packed into the room, we only organized a few things because of our excitement for the show. We left campus, typed Andre’s address into the “Maps” app, queued our, “Touching Road” playlist, and drove for two-and-a-half hours to the Burg.

When we arrived, we immediately hopped into his car and headed straight to Boston. Traffic was pretty heavy the whole way down. Blue skies though.

Finally, we got to the venue, pulled into parking garage (where we paid $25 for a spot), and walked toward the gates. We felt a rumble, from head to toe, coming from the bass from the speakers under the pavilion.

That’s when we knew we were about to have a memorable experience.

The Show

This would be the second time that Adam and I saw these guys perform, and one of the coolest things about watching one of their shows is that they open for each other. It’s a constant flood of “Beast Coast” music.

We got to our seats and instantly felt the energy coming off everybody else who was dancing to the music. Everyone intertwined in and out of each other’s songs. Mind you, there were actual seats at the venue, which prevented everyone from raging, but, “Meechy Darko.” of “Flatbush Zombies,” told the entire crowd to stand on top of their seats.

The entire crowd did just that.

Bass was bumping and people were really getting into it. That’s when crowd security lost control of everyone though. People flooded the aisles in between the seats when the artists began jumping off of the stage and running through them.

People lost their minds when security lost control, and the artists energy definitely changed once they were in control. Security threatened to shut the show down if we didn’t go back to our seats, but once the crowd got a taste of the real concert action it was hard to stand on our seats without itching to rush the stage. Toward the end of the show, “Beast Coast” completely disregarded the security’s wishes and told everybody to rush the front of the stage.

Rockland Trust Pavilion holds a max capacity of 5,200 people, and this was a sold-out show.

Things got hectic.

I lost my group, but I didn’t mind.

“I was, like, being squished really hard. My ribs were pushed against the rail,” Osha said.

I found myself at the very front of the crowd, slammed up against the rail, watching everybody on stage soar over my head in hopes that the crowd will catch them. Everything was moving in slow motion.

Once the rappers got back on stage, they walked across the front of it with their hands stuck out toward the crowd touching everyone’s hands. It was unreal.

This was my fourth time seeing “Flatbush Zombies,” my third time seeing “The Underachievers,” and my second time seeing everyone else perform. It was really cool to be somewhat face to face with them during the end of their performance.

Osha had fun too.

“This was one of the greatest concert experiences that I’ve ever lived through,” he said.