- The first song was “Gucci Flip Flops,” a Lil Yachty collaboration with a singsong, knick-knack-paddy-whack flow. Bregoli rapped about a big-faced watch dripping in diamonds — a luxury commodity that she neither had nor especially wanted. On a literal level, nearly everything she rapped that night was untrue. At 15, she could not drive the Bentley truck mentioned in “Both of ’Em,” nor the Porsche on “Hi Bich.” The audience knew this wasn’t the point. Now they understood that if their interest was partly in jest, it was not the sneering mockery of hipsters at Olive Garden, but the camp infatuation of gay men who root for Disney villains. Bregoli’s claims were demonstrably false, but at least they spoke truth to our universal urge to prove haters wrong, especially when they might actually be right.
Bregoli crouched down to get level with her crowd: “What’s up, all my Santa Ana sluts?” The crowd declared its allegiance, but not for long enough; her discography was still only 20 minutes end to end. She made some efforts to extend her presence visually. A screen played a reel of nonmusical hits: clips of recent TMZ coverage, footage from the infamous Spirit Airlines fight. She performed covers (of Lil Pump, of Kodak Black) and chose a fan to bring onstage (the brace-faced “Julie from East L.A.”). She played a game of call and response: “How many of you hate these fake-ass bitches?” The audience reached an expedient consensus. She flipped her ponytail and paused for a breath. In the moment of quiet, one man tried his luck: “CASH ME OUTSIDE HOWBOUDAH?”
The room fell silent. The man had transgressed an unspoken taboo. He should have known better than to shout at a girl whose only proven talent was firing back.