Photo Courtesy of Milo’s Facebook
Under the Babbitt Pavilion on a warm and summery September Saturday, an intimate crowd enjoyed a free performance by alternative hip hop musician Milo, thanks to WHCL. Opener Chelsea Reject warmed up the crowd with high-energy rap and dance moves to be followed by the more low-key rapper Milo. Milo, from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, wore thick-framed square 1970s-style glasses that covered his distinguishable unibrow. He opened his performance by asking for a belt from the audience to hoist up his loose wide-legged purple pants. Once Jacob Leebron ’18, the General Manager of WHCL, took off his belt and handed it to the rapper, Milo was ready to perform.
Milo began rapping by facing the parking lot, rather than making eye contact with the audience. After he three songs, he decided to face the crowd. He chuckled to himself as he admitted that he enjoyed analyzing how the intimate crowd had arranged the way they were standing. The performance became more of a conversation between the audience and Milo as he continued to check in with the crowd.
One of his first questions was “do you guys like sandwiches?” to which the crowd answered, “Yeah!” This question appeared simple and straightforward at first. Maybe he was going to rap about sandwiches? As soon as the audience confirmed that they too enjoyed sandwiches, Milo laughed. He claimed that he asked that question only because the mainly white audience could relate to that. He then told a story of when he was eleven years old and walking home with a sandwich that he bought from the local deli in his town in Maine. While he was walking, a cop car pulled him over and asked what he was doing in the area.
Young Milo claimed that he lived in the town. The cop did not believe him and continued to press him for questions, asking how old he was, what school he went to, and for a form of identification. Young Milo became very frazzled and started saying “I don’t know.” Not satisfied with his answers, the cop forced Milo to get into the car. From the ripe age of eleven, Milo was taught that the United States labeled him and categorized him as a threat due to the color of his skin. Milo translates this feeling of oppression and defiance in his song “IDK.”
Milo, known as Rory Ferreira off of the stage, was born in Chicago, Illinois to parents who were high school dropouts and both under the age of twenty-one. He then moved to Saco, Maine and spent most of his childhood there. He got into music at the age of twelve. Before going to St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin, he attended thirteen different schools because his parents were divorced and always moving around.
During his high school years, Milo worked a lot with hip-hop. He eventually dropped out of St. Norbert to pursue a music career. In 2010, he released his first mixtape, called
Greatest Hits Vol. 1
. He has released four other mixtapes since then, the most recent one in 2017 known as
Over the Carnage Rose a Voice Prophetic
. He has also released five albums since 2014, the most recent one called
Who Told You To Think??!!?!?!?!
, released in 2017.
Under the shady pavilion as the sun set and the concert was coming to a close, Milo pointed at the Babbitt basketball courts and asked the crowd if they wanted to join him in a game of pickup basketball after the show. He chuckled at his own joke. In addition to singing for college students and making them laugh, Milo enjoys rapping to his young son. Before his son was born, he rapped for himself, but now Milo raps in the position of a father for his child.
