Rapid-rising U.K. rapper EsDeeKid brought his hot-ticket, sold-out Rebel Tour to Toronto’s Mod Club Saturday and Sunday night, playing less than an hour set that ignited the 600-capacity crowd to jump and mosh as if they were at a 70s punk show.
“Open this shit up,” he said time and time again throughout the night, a common instruction in metal, EDM and rap to create a circle pit, and they obliged every time. “Youss crazy” was his other frequent comment.
The cloud rap and trap creator, who hides all but his eyes underneath a black balaclava and has not yet revealed his birth name publicly, hails from Liverpool and raps in a thick Scouse accent about drugs and more drugs, nightlife, the seedier elements and the trappings of expensive brands. He’s immoralizing Liverpool in a way The Fab Four didn’t; a year ago he dropped a remix of “Black Beatles,” by hip hop duo Rae Sremmurd.
Emerging in 2024, EsDeeKid quickly went viral after dropping his debut album, Rebel, last summer, which charted in the U.K., and beyond, fired up by his first official single, “Phantom.”
For a while, there were rumours that EsDeeKid was actor Timothée Chalamet until a “rigorous journalistic investigation” by GQ’s Josiah Gogarty in November proved the timeline did not match. To hammer the last nail in that coffin, a month later the Marty Supreme star joined him on a remix and video for “4 Raws,” which reportedly racked up 115 million views across Instagram and X within 24 hours.
The Mod Club shows were, of course, both sold out, but there was a small quantity of tickets available until showtime on Ticketmaster at resale prices, going for just under $200 to as much as $425. One fan standing next to this scribe bought a ticket for $375 and flew in by herself from Winnipeg. She said it was worth every penny.
The intense and often menacing set was jammed with the songs he’s released solo — of course “Phantom,” which now has over 170 million streams — and with collaborators Fimiguerrero, fakemink, and Rico Ace, the latter joining him on the Rebel Tour, and performed a few on his own, like “Scatti” and “Getting’ It In.” While EsDeeKid did not come out for their collabs “Bally” and “Palaces,” he returned for “Cali Man,” “Mist” and “EV Sandals.”
Wrapping up the 40-min set with “Tartan,” “5am,” and “Panic,” he said, “Before I start this next one, I need this pit to be as big as possible,” then bit into “Rottweiler,” the song which begins: “Too much snow kid, coming like Canada.” (fyi, it ain’t about Canada).
“Yo crazy,” he tells us again. He headed off at 9:45 p.m., back just for one more song, “Century.” Outside, by the chatter overheard about the show, no one seemed disappointed it was short. There was an electricity and excitement about the historical show, not unlike when another viral sensation, whose real name we did not yet know, The Weeknd, who played his first show at Mod Club.
When EsDeeKid returns to Toronto, it will no doubt be a much larger venue. This is rap with a punk aesthetic, underground rap, gritty and menacing a genre that is building in the U.K. and just might be the next global breakthrough, like grunge was in the 90s.
