Recap: Mr. Muthafuckin Exquire Heats Up NYC’s Boiler Room

Alphabet City was not ready for what went down on Tuesday night, when the London party Boiler Room hosted Universal Republic’s newest contribution to rap, Mr. Muthafuckin Exquire, at a small nightclub and underground performance hall called STAY. The bar’s secret basement venue, accessed only through a camouflaged revolving door (made entirely of recylced Corona boxes), was turned into a tightly packed, intensely amplified show room where Mr. Exquire — “don’t forget the ‘Muthafuckin,’ without that, it’s nothin'” — turned the crowd upside down.

Since the small, dimly lit basement space lacked a physical stage, Exquire entertained from within the masses, standing right in the middle of the floor. “Straight shots of vodka, straight shots of vodka,” Exquire spit into the mic as overzealous fans circled around the Brooklyn MC. Loving the intimate space and high energy, Exquire took a time out to bring up some of his talented hypemen, as well as Despot — looking out of place as always — who rocked the mic with a 24-bar acapella freestyle. The crowd ate it up.

Eventually, it was impossible to discern between Exquire, his hypemen, and the crowd, for soon enough the audience, which included Exquire’s opening act Children of the Night and Flatbush Zombies, turned into a mosh pit — the second one of the night. Earlier, Children of the Night (featuring a surprise apperance by A$AP Ant) had set off the show with an equally hype introduction to their newest music, which, setting a trend for the night’s event, had turned into sweaty frenzy of fans and performers jumping one another. “I fucks with y’alls energy,” Remy Banks, the youngest member of the trio, told the mobbing crowd . As one mosh lead to another, Mr. Muthafuckin Exquire had to agree. Sweat dripped, Nikes collided, and it was clear that the basement was absolutely too tiny to hold both Exquire’s energy and the crowd’s enthusiasm at the same time. Yet,by some miraculous blessing from the gods of hip-hop, Mr. Exquire and his 100+ fans were able to finish the show and escape the secret storeroom alive. Well done, Mr. Exquire, well done.

Don’t believe the hype? Check out more photos from the entire night, taken by Raven Varona.