BLACKSTARKIDS on touring with The 1975, conquering Madison Square Garden, and KC homecoming show

Blackstarkids live. // Photo by Daniel Ruiz

We have made absolutely no attempt to hide our undying adoration for KC’s own hip-hop royalty on the come up, BLACKSTARKIDS. A cursory search for stories about the young group yields a few pages of results on our site. In 2020, we named Surf our album of the year, and in 2021 we chronicled the group’s conquering of all around them. To say that we’re in their corner would be an understatement.

BLACKSTARKIDS open for The 1975 at Cable Dahmer in Independence, MO on Dec. 8. Tickets are still available. This is just one of many stops on the national tour where the local trio are opening for one of the biggest modern rock bands in the world.

We caught up with Deiondre, The Babe Gabe, and TyFaizon the morning after they played Madison Square Garden, and were recovering from a night few of us could even dream of experiencing. So it was exceptionally kind of them to wake up in time to chat with us about the tour, Cyberkiss*, and more.

The Pitch: What’s the emotional hangover like from playing Madison Square Garden like?

Deiondre: It was a good celebration night. After the whole thing, it was crazy.

Is that the most people you’ve performed for in your career?

The Babe Gabe: Yeah, probably.

TyFaizon: And at an indoor venue? For sure, yeah.

How did this tour with The 1975 come about?

TyFaizon: They wanted to bring us. It was that simple. A personal pick.

Deiondre: Honestly, no one knows this, but we were supposed to do this tour two years ago with them. But COVID happened, and it got cancelled. We’re picking up where we left off, now that we’re finally able to tour.

It was an awful time for the rest of us, being stuck inside for two years, but I can’t imagine how much worse it must have been for you to know that at any given time you should be playing MSG and living that rockstar life on tour.

TyFaizon: It fucks you up at times, but we’d remember it’s gonna happen—it’s gonna happen eventually. We tried to not overthink it or get in our heads too much.

Gabe The Babe: I feel like we’re more ready to. Yeah. Now’s a good time for us to actually do that. With all the tours we’ve done. It’s like we’re killing it.

TyFaizon: We had the time to really develop our live show.

Blackstarkids live. // Photo by Daniel Ruiz

After two years of somebody leaning on the pause button like that, how did that impact the development of the new album? Were you starting to think like, “Oh, time to write songs for a stadium audience instead of a small venue crowd”?

Deiondre: We made it on our own, without the label in mind. But halfway through we started talking to the label and we’re starting to notice, “These songs feel huge.” They fit in an arena. We were making big songs.

You mentioned that you’re glad to have had the two years to up your live show. What did you work on, especially regarding tweaking crowd-work during isolation?

Deiondre: We know how to put on a good show because we think of our songs and our performance in very visual terms. So we’ll be very ready for when we have the chance to start developing visuals to complement our live shows. Crowd control is what we know right now, and we try to convey our art through the show, the album art, the videos, all the shit we do.

What is it like to go out to an audience of 1975 fans every night who might not know your work and have to perform for a stadium full of people who are surprised to meet you for the first time.

TyFaizon: It can be a bit nerve-inducing at time, but the best thing we can do is just give a great representation of ourselves as a live band, and know that the audience will gravitate towards that. Just doing what we’re already doing natural will win over people as we go, and we just keep going. Sure, there will always be people who don’t like our shit, because people don’t love everything. If we have a good portion of the crowd enjoying what we do, and it’s a fun experience, then everyone can agree that’s a good show.

Deiondre: It’s rewarding when you perform for a crowd that’s surprised when the opener doesn’t sound anything like the main act. Folks are pleasantly surprised when they see us and hear what we’re bringing.

Blackstarkids live. // Photo by Daniel Ruiz

What are the plans for what you’re doing in the day outside of dry? Are you planning to do a lot of like writing on the road or just sort of soaking this one in as you go?

Deiondre: When we’re on the road we’re focused entirely on the tour. We make this time as efficient as possible. We talk about ideas and work on visual concepts and themes. That’s how we got to the whole CYBERKISS* project.

What do you got planned for 2023? Just gonna keep touring and never coming home after Cable Dahmer. What’s the plan for what’s next?

TyFaizon: Performances, performances, performances. We’re not going to release a new project next year, the goal is just to perform everywhere.

Deiondre: We’re looking forward to doing our own shows, headlining stuff—some overseas show and stuff like that, which’ll be a cool experience for us. It’s going to be nice have a year where we’re not pressed on releasing something, we can just focus on making it.

TyFaizon: We like to have the time to really craft something.

So no 1975/BLACKSTARKIDS crossover EP, nothing like that?

TyFaizon: I wouldn’t say EP, but I’m sure we’ll do something.

BLACKSTARKIDS open for The 1975 at Cable Dahmer in Independence, MO on Dec. 8. Tickets are still available.