All of this was evident on stage Wednesday night at the Fillmore in Silver Spring. So Babytron added a layer of fashion to the mix: a big coat, big sunglasses, and big fountains of hair spurting out from the back of a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. Please don't show me that you're sweating, okay? Or a smile. Or wink. Or use facial muscles that may indicate what's really going on inside the gobstopper. So Babytron keeps a straight face throughout “Crash Yo Whip Music,” telling a metaphor-rich tale of his ascension from being “baked like a panini” to eating “linguine.” That voice was exerting serious driving force. “Like Luigi” haunts the mansion, then goes through an interlude that includes bites of “squeegee,” “bikini,” “fiji,” and a slant-rhyme metaphor about NBA Hall of Famer Dirk “Nowitzki,” before the final This leads to the feeling of “.'' “Like Da Vinci,” he says, “and when I look at my bank account, someone comes and pinches me.”
He was running up the mountain of life like a child climbing a jungle gym. Of course he was having fun, even if he didn't seem to be enjoying it very much. Stand-up comedians don't laugh at their own jokes. Magicians never hold their breath with their tricks. Sure, BabyTron doesn't have to enjoy everything the rest of us enjoy. Even his hype team spent most of the show standing guard at the front edge of the stage, mostly nodding along to the beats. It looked like they were waiting for a bus.
As for the rest of the audience, it was during Babytron and wild-style Milwaukee rapper Certified Trapper's high-octane duet, “Zap Zone,” that they finally noticed that the bus was gone about halfway through their set. He seemed to have noticed. With charming eighth note clap. As the assembled flock enthusiastically raised their hands above their heads and clapped together, Babytron asserted himself as the shepherd of souls and the irritated driver in the same breathing ribbon.
There was also a more modest Razzle Dazzle. “A2Z” gave BabyTron the opportunity to alphabetize his boasts, as if “Sesame Street” were M for adults. Meanwhile, “Ex,” from his new album “Case Dismissed,” made the list of scorned lover-cast hexes. “I wish she got mosquito bites on her back where she can't reach,” Babytron rapped. “I hope she grabs her last pizza and drops it.” Naturally, he sounds more like a psychic motormouth brainstorming bad luck than a ruthless hater. I did. Let the hearts of other rappers bleed. BabyTron's mind is at work.