“I was like, ‘Damn, we comin’ up on being old heads. It’s about to be our 10th anniversary. I should probably go ahead and tap in and make sure I set something up.'”

That’s Father, de facto figurehead of the Atlanta-based collective Awful Records, when asked what prompted the anniversary gig he put on last month in his hometown. He only began thinking about a 10-year commemoration after his longtime heroes the Cure announced an anniversary reissue of one of their classic albums.

When I woke up hungover at 5:45 AM to catch my flight home, only a few hours removed from the raucous show at Terminal West, I had a line from the band’s hit 1985 single “In Between Days” rattling around my head: “Yesterday I got so old/ I felt like I could die.”

Awful blew up in 2014 off the strength of a vibrant cast of diverse characters and their unbelievably prolific output. At the time I was fresh out of college working as an editor at a hip-hop site, and I was instantly infatuated with their whole vibe. Father’s weirdo minimalism was the initial hook, but it got more rewarding the deeper I delved. There was Ethereal, the based-as-fuck left-fielder; Abra, the popstar-in-waiting; Slug Christ, the wildly inventive, wildly drugged-out white boy; Lord Narf, the brash, hyped-up party-starter; Archibald Slim, the resident traditionalist; and at least a dozen others. I saw them live as often as I could, and I made it my professional mission to expose them to a larger audience.

For a certain strain of rap fan, mid-2010s Atlanta was a realization of everything that the past two decades of forward-thinking Southern hip-hop had promised. T.I., Jeezy, and especially Gucci Mane’s trap blueprints of the 2000s were taken to psychedelic extremes on a weekly basis. Underground sensations like the Awful crew, iLoveMakonnen, and Key! were operating less visibly than major label stars like Future, Young Thug, and Migos, but regardless of stature, everyone seemed like they were trying to match each other’s freak.

I’m always hesitant to make this comparison because of the obvious incongruities, but in many ways Awful seemed like the heirs apparent to Odd Future. Arriving a few years later amid the brief sweet spot when SoundCloud busted open previous barriers of entry but streaming hadn’t yet fully taken over, they spun a similarly arty, eclectic web of music unified under a trustworthy umbrella of quality control. It was sustainable too, despite Awful’s relatively niche lane.

“You could make so much money back then,” Father told me, crediting sales from iTunes and Bandcamp. “Goddamn, I was making so much bread. At one point I was making like, 10 bands a month off people streaming and buying my music.”

“The notoriety from what we was doing came ’cause we was dropping so much,” added Archibald Slim. It’s true: In 2014 and 2015, I checked the Awful SoundCloud at least twice a week, and I’d always find something exciting and unexpected.

Longevity proved more difficult. Crucial to the collective spirit that fueled Awful was the existence of a central home base, an apartment complex dubbed “The Barrio,” where everyone would congregate, party, and spontaneously record music together. Back then, there was crowd noise in the background of most songs and the music videos rarely had concepts that couldn’t be shot during such gatherings. With another decade under their belts, Father and Archibald Slim cringe at that lack of production value.

“I was mixing people’s shit just ’cause it needed to come out,” says Archie, who graduated from an audio engineering program just before the anniversary show. “I wasn’t like, ‘How is the Alchemist getting his shit mixed?’ I wasn’t thinking about that type of shit then. I am now, but then I was just listening to music. We was recording songs in the middle of the room with everyone else around. [The 2015 song] ‘Let Me Know’ — we made that in the living room. Like, imagine a microphone in the middle of the room with someone yelling behind us.”

“At the time we were like, ‘That’s cool, fuck it,'” says Father. “But now I feel like we could’ve cleaned it up so much better, like skill-wise.”

“We was literally making the songs and throwing them bitches up in an hour,” says Archie.

In fall 2015, everyone vacated the Barrio. The effect was instantaneous — Awful’s output slowed to a trickle, and the once-inseparable crew splintered. Father and Archie, who met in school prior to Awful, have toured together in the years since, often bringing one or two other Awful members with them. But when I asked them how long it’d been since they had more than three or four members onstage together, they looked back and forth at each other, unable to provide an accurate answer.

That’s why this show felt special. The chaos of having a dozen people onstage, all alternating turns on the mic, was what made the four or five Awful shows I caught in the mid-2010s so memorable (their legendary Boiler Room set is the best lasting document of this). Chemistry and camaraderie were overflowing, collaborations were performed in full, and when the stars aligned during a 2014 CMJ showcase opening for Rae Sremmurd, I even got to see Father, Makonnen, and Key! do their era-defining hit “Look At Wrist” in full together.

There were notable absences last month — most conspicuously RichPoSlim, KeithCharles Spacebar, Stalin Majesty, Lui Diamonds, GAHM, and Alexandria — but in four hours, Awful managed to cram in individual sets by 13 members (including DJ interstitials by core producer 019Dexter and Father’s tour DJ, the Canterbury Talez). For the first few sets, the stage was mostly empty outside of the featured vocalist, their DJ, and whoever came out for a guest verse, but the party atmosphere ramped up quickly. From Slug Christ’s 9:30 set onward, it was a glorious mess of haphazard dancing, jumping, and Awful arms thrown around Awful shoulders.

I arrived just as Coodie Breeze (fka Pyramid Quince) went on. The night before, at the Airbnb that Father rented to serve as a home base for the weekend, Coodie started singing the iconic horn part from OutKast’s “SpottieOttieDopaliscious” unprompted during an unrelated conversation. As random as that was, it solidified my existing opinion of him as Awful’s resident André and Big Boi torch-carrier. He’s got a trippy, smoked-out sound that’s more traditionally Southern than the rest of Awful, just as indebted to the ‘90s as Archie’s music, but smoother and more soulful.

Those two have always been a natural match, and that held true when Archie came out halfway through Coodie’s set and announced that they’d be doing a few songs from an upcoming collaborative album. That type of joint release used to be Awful’s bread and butter, revealing often-unexpected symbiosis between members, and it was exciting to hear that more are imminent.

“Me, Archie, [Ethereal], we’re the ones that still chat daily, and [Awful-affiliated actor/comedian Zack Fox] when he’s around, we’ll always pull up,” Father said when asked if the group’s once-strong bonds still held tight. “We’re still like the core old-head n****s that chat and like to grill and drink—we always tend to link more than everyone else.”

“Even the girls have all spread off on their own,” he continued, referencing how close Narf, Abra, and Tommy Genesis used to be. “I feel like everybody became more individuals over time.”

Archie, despite his many collaborations during Awful’s heyday, always seemed comfortable on his own. He was rapping stuff like, “Once i saw n****s flaw had to cut n****s off/ So the circle just a dot now” as early as his 2014 breakout tape He’s Drunk! (I should note that this was my introduction to Awful, and I first found out about it from a column by Stereogum’s own Tom Breihan). When everybody was playfully bickering about their setlists the night before the show, Archie was adamant that he was going to do “whole-ass songs, every verse, no features.”

The title of his 2015 tape Last Days In The Barrio proved prophetic. He wouldn’t release another full-length until teaming up with indie label Passion Of The Weiss for one album apiece in 2021 and ’22, but he returned with a gravitas that matched the wizened tone he’s had since his mid-20s. Having lost most of his early masters thanks to a series of corrupted hard drives, his set leaned heavy on newer material. One of these, the just-released “Count Your Blessings,” includes the best one-line summary of his lovably crotchety vibe: “If you smokin’ dirt weed you ain’t applying yourself.”

The transition between Archie’s barred-up stoicism and Slug Christ’s disorderly slurring was drastic, the night’s neatest snapshot of Awful’s range. Slug looked and sounded great, a major relief after early performances marked by a reckless onstage presence that hewed uncomfortably close to the unhinged personality of his music. He nodded to this reputation by wearing a Janis Joplin tee, but that was as self-destructive as it got. As sober as he seemed, Slug still set the party off. He opened with 2015’s “I’m The Ocean,” an unhinged freestyle that most of the crowd had committed to memory, and he didn’t let up until closing with the raucous, thoroughly depressing “Herron.” “Am I about to cry right now? What a fuckin’ pussy,” he demurred onstage. Slug’s impact on other rap-adjacent, addiction-battling artists like Lil Peep and Suicideboys can’t be overstated, nor can the heartening impact of seeing him alive and well in 2024.

The stage was already packed, but even more bodies crowded on for Ethereal’s set. The wheelchair-bound rapper/producer came out in neon shades and a stuffed animal backpack, took out an MPC, and locked the fuck in. The rest of Awful may not have had the lasting influence that I thought they would in the mid-2010s, but Ethereal has proven to be ahead of his time in ways I never could’ve imagined. He deserves more credit for discovering, mentoring, and producing for onetime Awful affiliate Playboi Carti, but beyond that woefully short-lived partnership with one of modern rap’s North Stars, Ethereal’s bugged-out minimalism continues to reverberate around far-flung corners of younger generations.

Tommy Genesis has found her way onto recent albums by JPEGMAFIA and Lana Del Rey, securing the kind of concrete cultural relevance that has diminished for most of the night’s other performers. Despite that, her set had the most mid-2010s vibe of the whole show. She interspersed unreleased new material and cuts from 2021’s Goldilocks X with stuff dating back to shortly after she linked up with Awful in 2015, but regardless of the timestamp, her brand of breathy rap-singing felt encased in amber. She shouted out Charli XCX before playing their 2018 collab “100 Bad,” and especially in the fresh wake of the British popstar’s recent triumph, Brat, Genesis felt zeroed in on the uneasy marriage of pop and rap of the 2014 hit “Fancy.”

Father’s set was destined to be a time capsule. His solo work has evolved since the days of his 2014 breakout, Young Hot Ebony, but as he expressed to me the night before the show, he knew that “people bought tickets to hear the hits.” He played the role expected of him during a set dominated by songs from his debut and 2015’s underrated Who’s Gonna Get Fucked First. By now, there was barely enough room for him to move around the stage, and between the rest of Awful and the crowd, the song lyrics rang out regardless of whether or not he was on the mic. I’d like to think it was as nostalgic for him as it was for me.

“At the beginning, we knew all your shit,” Archie said to Father the previous night. “All of us knew all your shit. And now it’s at the point where n****s just up there doing this [pantomimes pushing around, bobbing to beat] and ain’t nobody rap that shit.”

Everyone was asked to clear the stage before Abra’s headlining set. That sudden transition from unruly communal participation to a more intentionally manicured solo performance may have better suited her gothy synth-pop, but it stifled the vibe. Even when she was fighting for space in Awful’s early shows and videos, Abra seemed destined for stardom. She had the unteachable intangibles — a knack for under-your-skin songwriting, an entrancing shy-but-dangerous aura — and she made good on those haunting bangers like “Roses” and “Fruit” from her 2015 debut. Even more so than Archie’s lengthy hiatus, Ethereal’s undervalued influence, and Father’s undeserved slide out of the spotlight, the fact that her career never took off is the most disappointing aspect of Awful’s legacy.

To an even greater degree than Tommy Genesis, Abra has notched high-profile collaborations (she’s appeared on albums by Bad Bunny, Solange, Gorillaz, Toro y Moi, and yes, Charli XCX), and in the 2020s she’s formed a working relationship with Boys Noize. That’s all A-List guest work, but since 2015, the only solo release she has to show for it is a 2016 EP released by True Panther. What’s going on here?

The only people from the Awful constellation that graduated to the mainstream were, oddly enough, all marginal during the peak of the crew’s hype.

Formerly known as Bootymath, the aforementioned Zack Fox was a core fixture, but the joke-y music he made under the moniker Lil Nissan Jessica took a backseat (unfortunately, because that shit was great) to the album art and merch he designed, as well as the frequent host/MC role he played for the crew’s shows. He’s spent the past decade honing his singular sense of humor, gradually leveling up all the way to household name status. Because of his recurring Abbott Elementary role, he’s the only Awful affiliate that my parents would recognize, and for younger generations he’s known as the internet god behind iconic viral moments like “Jesus Is The One” and “this how the photos be lookin in headlines when a white man kills his entire family.” There’s no way in hell he’s disappearing anytime soon.

More tangential and unexpected is the folk/country-tinged indie rock artist Faye Webster. You won’t find her on any of Awful’s peak-era output, but via a longstanding online friendship with Ethereal, she found her way into the fold after dropping out of college and moving back home to Atlanta. Lil Yachty’s appearance on her 2024 album is a lot less surprising if you know about Father’s guest verse on her breakout 2017 album Atlanta Millionaires Club.

But no shadow looms larger than Playboi Carti’s. In early 2015, I brought Father and Archie into my then-workplace to write a feature on Awful, and along with RichPoSlim and KeithCharlesSpacebar, they brought a zooted, irreverent 19-year-old with them. He seemed like a weird fit, but then again, so did most of the crew. That night, I saw them all perform at SOBs in Tribeca, and amid the standard chaos, Carti came out for one song. That song was “Broke Boi,” a Rap Twitter sensation that never got an official release. People went ape.

Although he’s credited Ethereal with helping him find his sound, Carti didn’t hang around Awful for long. He fell in with A$AP Mob, signed to a major, then left them behind too. Since then, he’s become arguably the most essential trendsetter of hip-hop’s last decade: ushering in the future with his 2017 debut, cementing his spot with the 2018 follow-up Die Lit, then declaring ownership of the burgeoning rage-rap sound with 2020’s career reinvention Whole Lotta Red. He’s slowed his output in the years since, but every brief burst of activity confirms that his status continues to grow.

Father came out for an encore after Abra’s set. Before shepherding the ensemble cast of those onstage and in the crowd through a performance of “Young Hot Ebony,” he jokingly noted the unplanned coincidence of the long-in-the-works reunion show falling on Father’s Day weekend, but then got uncharacteristically serious: “Thank y’all for being here today, and not just today, but the whole damn time. Y’all gave n****s opportunities to live like this.”

Now literally a father of two, Awful’s figurehead seems like he’s figured it all out. There’s none of the bitterness I’ve often found in artists unable to eclipse the impossible expectations set by bygone “next big thing” statuses. He’s still got a devoted fanbase, and he’s comfortable with being a self-described “old-head.” Maybe it’s because I’ve been in touch with Archie for years, but I’m even happier for him. I was surprised to learn that he plans to mostly pursue film and podcast work (not music) with his new degree, but as he said a professor told him, “That’s where the money at.” The renewed hunger in his musical output seems more like a byproduct, and less like a contradiction, of this newfound hustle.

The last thing I asked Father and Archie was whether they thought that things would play out the same if they were transported to 2024 at the ages they were when starting Awful. They noted how overcrowded Atlanta’s music ecosystem seems nowadays, with Father saying, “There’s a lot more of these little crews. The accessibility is a lot higher.” But I’ll leave Archie with his poignant final word:

“We would probably still be doing what we was doing. But you see how there’s so much shit out now? We did it by accident! We just was always together, this was just some shit that we was doing and somebody found out — ‘Ay, they over there doing some cool shit’ — and just shined a light on it. People now that’s making music, they don’t always have love to make the music, they just makin’ that shit. We was just making it ’cause that’s what we loved to do. We wasn’t trying to get famous.”