AG Club

On Sunday, April 2, The Community Center for the Performing Arts proudly welcomes AG Club to the WOW Hall.

More heads will always be better than one. Just ask AG Club. Short for Avant Garde Club, the Bay Area collective is fronted by the rapper-singer duo of Jody Fontaine and Baby Boy, who practically finish each other’s sentences on tape and in conversation. With 14 members across different art disciplines– from musicians to filmmakers, content creators, photographers, and designers—they pour their respective talents into the kind of bond dynamic collectives are traditionally made of, yet there’s nothing traditional about them. They’ll drop an impenetrable hip-hop banger, only to flip the script with an arena-ready rock anthem. Jody Fontaine is hyper, hilarious, lyrical, and visionary, and Baby Boy is quiet, creative, and equally visionary. AG Club are undeniable, unrelenting, and unfuckwittable. After a string of independent releases over the past few years, which saw them generate millions of streams and considerable critical praise, the group’s irreverent and inimitable vision comes to life on their 2022 full-length, ImpostorSyndrome [Epic Records].

“Baby Boy and I operate like twins with telepathy,” observes Jody. “Trusting each other and being open to different things is why our music ends up like it does. We try everything and don’t get stuck on one way. Baby Boy has a certain level of intelligence. Vocally, he’s amazing. He can do things I think of, but I can’t do. A big part of our identity is his crazy figurative language.”

“I think Jody is the best rapper ever to be on this earth,” Baby Boy responds. “He has this star power and confidence reminiscent of everyone we looked up to when we were coming up. He’s on top of shit. He’s always trying to make everyone around us better. He’s a fucking king.”

Jody adds, “You can also transcribe that we dapped up and hugged there.”

Once the hug was over, the story continued…

As legend has it, Jody stumbled upon a video of Baby Boy on Twitter in 2017. Jody followed him, and Baby Boy returned the favor. Not long after, they ran into each other in real life at church. A series of encounters followed before they hit the studio for a session. “Off rip, we clicked, and we’ve been tight ever since,” smiles Jody. 

On the heels of their first track “Flowers,” they posted the video for “Ay, G” and gained traction on YouTube. Their Halfway Off The Porch EP followed in 2020, igniting the breakthrough single “Memphis.” UPROXX hailed them as “The Youthful, Disruptive Rap Band You Need To Know,” and i-D went as far as to christen them “the Bay Area music collective you wish you could join.” Pigeons & Planes pegged them as an “Artist to Watch” for 2021. In the wake of their two-part album Fuck Your Expectations PT. 1 & 2, they sold out gigs coast-to-coast on the “Fuck Your Expectations” Tour and ignited festivals such as Day n Vegas and Lollapalooza, and found themselves highlighted in The New York Times. Not to mention, A$AP Ferg, NLE Choppa, and ICECOLDBISHOP have all pulled up for collaborations with AG Club. The musical group itself would just be Jody and Baby Boy, but they also launched the larger collective AGCNSF, including various creators. 

Along the way, they inked a deal with Epic Records and assembled what would become Impostor Syndrome with a vision.

“Impostor Syndrome is a reflection on everything we went through during Fuck Your Expectations,” Jody elaborates. “We were dealing with not really knowing our true identity as artists and where we were in life. We were coming off of COVID, and we didn’t know how people felt about us. We had a big song out of the gate, but it didn’t necessarily represent us 100%.  We thought people were going to realize we aren’t those guys. Conquering those feelings was how we got to this point with Impostor Syndrome. We’re humans, and we’re allowed to change.”

They introduce this chapter with the single “Tru Religion.” Co-produced by Junior Varsity and Jackson Shanks, a steady beat builds towards a skyscraping chorus with all of the sticky summer melody of your favorite turn-of-the-century pop punk banger. The hook resounds, “It feels so good, so good, don’t it?”

“Our friend Jackson was in a full True Religion fit head-to-toe,” recalls Jody. “It’s like a campfire-y early two-thousands rock song.”

Bass-y neon keys reverberate on “Adam Sandlered,” climaxing with an otherworldly chorus.

“Adam Sandler came through in some XXXL jean shorts and an XL polo,” laughs Baby Boy. “He said we needed to do something in his honor.” 

A subdued soundscape twinkles in spacey bliss on the finale “Candice.” 

“It has a ‘This is over’ vibe,” notes Jody. 

In the end, AG Club are here for each other, so they can be here for everyone else.

“When you get into the entertainment industry, there’s pressure to be a certain type of person,” Jody leaves off. “It’s the quickest way to lose yourself. You need to stay grounded and remember why you started. Don’t let anyone pressure you into becoming something that isn’t natural. Fuck trends. Fuck what’s popular. Do what you feel. That’s what we’re doing.”

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