fortydust // j. // brockhampton

𝔢𝔩𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔫

"I think we're done with the production for the day." Romil leaned back in his chair, looking satisfied.

They'd all just walked in after being texted by Kenny. She'd made a group chat with everyone's number and named it Fortyhampton.

"So can we hear?" Genesis asked and Kenny nodded. "Yeah obviously." She turned back to her computer and hit play.

The opening started off with the same fast violins from before, building up anticipation before it crashed down with slight twinkling affects. Harley didn't know how they'd done it so seamlessly but it worked. There was a stiff beat behind it, making the twinkling affects flow at the same time. Then the twinkling stopped, arranging the beat so that it dwindled until there was guitar shredding.

"Holy fucking shit." Harley said in disbelief, looking over at Kenny. "I'm gonna need your gritty vocals for this part." Kenny responded without acknowledging Harley's surprise. She didn't know how talented she was.

Eventually the violin was layered onto the solo guitar riff, blending seamlessly into each other before it switched and the beat came back. "We were thinking this is where Brockhampton came on."

The beat was almost scratchy, sounding like a guitar, but much more dense and bouncy. Harley gritted her teeth, bobbing her head every time it hit. "I don't even know what to say." Matt's mouth was wide open and Ciarán, to the right of him, was bobbing his head to the production with Harley. There was almost a ticking noise before the beat slowed down slightly, the beat mixing with a guitar.

"Joba, you need to do another J'ouvert verse on this." Kevin said and Harley agreed. She had just recently listened to his verses after wanting to hear more of their style. "I want to." He nodded, eyes still on the production.

"So who wants to be on here?" Kevin asked once it ended where the guitar echoed slightly. "How are we supposed to know?" "Off instinct-" And then Kevin's phone went off. "Who's that?" Harley teased but his face paled.

"The-the Bouyz. Their-their Instagram." Harley cackled. "Wait why do you even follow them? And with notifications on to." "So that I could see our competition." "That's stupid you should-"

"Harley. Look." He gave her his phone, ignoring her teasing, and her face paled. "Shit." "What? Tell us?" Kenny asked eagerly. "Yeah we wanna know." Romil added as Genesis said, "If this is stupid and you both are being dramatic for nothing, I'm gonna kill you." Harley could only shake her head as Kevin said, "The Bouyz are releasing a single tonight. And apparently this won't be the last."

"Bro what the fuck?" Ciarán said, eyebrows furrowed, and he nodded. "How'd you not know before?" Matt asked and Kevin shook his head. "This is a surprise release. Which is bad because they just built the hype by posting randomly."

"It's what you guys do all the time," Harley said, "That's your thing." "See, even she knows they're copying us." Kevin huffed. "What are we gonna do?"

"We have to release these two songs as soon as possible."

It was currently almost September. "By the beginning of October then." "Is that too far?" "No. We need time. And now that The Bouyz released something, we can't have things too close." Kevin said definitively and Harley agreed. "I can't believe I'm saying this but he's right." "I know I am."

"Can we listen to their song?" HK asked and Kevin blinked. "The Bouyz?" "Yes, who else?" "I was hoping you were talking about some other band." HK laughed before taking out his computer. "Go on a Youtube lyric video or something. We're not supporting them in any way." Kevin warned and everyone started laughing. There was a Youtube channel called thegirlzforthebouyz and Harley rolled her eyes.