Branoofunck Talk Formation, Sundays at the Armoury and Shaping Deep Ellum’s Sound

Deep Ellum’s sidewalks are baking just after 6 p.m. on a Sunday as the neighborhood’s bars gradually blink themselves awake, ready for a night of live music, dancing and drinks this Juneteenth weekend. Fans are already queued up outside Trees, waiting to hear Filipino-American singer Lyn Lapid. Three Links’ doors are open, and its windows are up, spilling the sounds of a local band hoping to draw a crowd.

But Armoury D.E. on Elm Street is already ahead in that game. The sounds of classic hip-hop began thumping out of its outdoor seating area at 6 p.m., and the place is already packed for its nighttime party, after switching from days to evenings for the warmer months.

On a hideaway patio, drummer/producer Medrick Greely, aka Medz, is freewheeling some added umph to a Jay-Z song from The Blueprint era. He’s banging his snare and kick drums, crashing cymbals during parts of the beat. The sound cuts through the noise of traffic and onto the sidewalk, drawing listeners like the Pied Piper’s flute.

A security guard counts the number of people he lets into Armoury D.E., ensuring that when it hits capacity, one in and one out. It almost always fills up. Follow the drummer. Open the door and hear Menace the DJ, the Grammy Award winner and other half of the duo Branoofunck, spinning classics like T.I.’s “What You Know” before transitioning to Kendrick Lamar’s “Humble.” It’s only an hour in Branoofunck’s weekly Sunday Sessions at the Armoury D.E., and Menace plays an unexpected blend of Kanye West’s “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” to Big Tuck’s “Not a Stain on Me.”

“The baddest drummer of the land,” he shouts on the mic, saluting Medz. The pair somehow makes Dipset’s “I’m Ready” even more bombastic. “The church of hip-hop” and “hip-hop’s Wakanda,” as their Branoofam has nicknamed their four-hour jam sessions, is just getting started.

Tables are full. Two people are celebrating their birthdays with a group of friends. The OGs in the back have their cigars lit. Camera phones record Medz’s percussion. People are standing in the heat as fans spray mist to keep them cool. It’s a mixed crowd of people of all age ranges: the young and hyped, the mid-30 millennials who love their 2000s hip-hop, and the 40 and 50-year-olds who still got it.

Been Down Since BrainDead Brewing

“No matter what Branoofunck does, we will never forget those who have been down since BrainDead. IYKYK,” the pair wrote on Instagram last month. A day later, the Observer is sitting across from Branoofunck at Armoury D.E., hearing their origin story.

Six months after the coronavirus pandemic ended, Medz and Menace were playing together at BrainDead on Saturdays, spinning ’80s and ’90s hip-hop while DJ Leo J did his own Sunday Sessions. “Their patio was in the front, and it was open to the street,” Menace said.

“We had the whole block,” Medz added.

“They got complaints from all the other venues because people would be going to their venue, but walking by like, ‘What the hell is happening over there?’ This is not me trying to brag or nothing, it’s just what happened. We attracted block parties. The police would be dancing with us,” Menace said.

“They went from not wanting us to be there for a minute to the same cops going like, ‘Nah, nah, y’all good,'” Medz said. “They started blocking off the place for us.”

It was a natural partnership, connecting through their shared appreciation for classic hip-hop and deep cuts. They’re like brothers, born five days apart, and complete each other’s sentences. Their unspoken chemistry means they rarely have to rehearse before shows, keeping their four-hour setlists unpredictable.

Medz laughs when Menace says the setlist is never planned because they grew up on the same hip-hop. “I mean the exact stuff that I loved is what he loved,” Menace said. “Everything,” Medz added.

“When I’m transitioning from one song to the other and he can barely hear it coming up, he’s already thinking of that next drum break. He’s not deciding when that song comes on, ‘OK, that’s how the drums go now, I’ll match them.’ He already knew. You know what I mean? As the song is changing to the other one, and I was like, ‘Oh, this is special,'” Menace said.

Raekwon has co-signed Branoofunck as the duo representing “Dallas to the fullest.” They’ve opened for Talib Kweli, GZA, KRS-One, Large Professor, Warren G and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony. They’re hip-hop purists, with many of the genre’s greatest MCs recognizing that. They’re encyclopedias of hip-hop, and you can tell that by how Medz matches every drum note in the songs or Menace mouths the lyrics in the background, sometimes with a drink in hand.

Their name, Branoofunck, comes from DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince’s “Brand New Funk.” It’s one of their favorite songs. “There’s a particular verse where Fresh Prince starts going, ‘You shoulda seen the people dancin’ and shakin’ and movin’ and jumpin’ and spinnin” and everything. And he started drumming that,” Menace said. “And I was like, ‘Oh, we’re best friends.'”

“Even the first verse of the song describes us perfectly,” Medz said. “It’s new, it’s out of the ordinary, it’s rather extraordinary. I mean it’s just us all the way through.”

Home Is Where the Heart Is

Music industry veterans, Medz and Menace sought a spark to keep their passion in hip-hop without quitting. Medz was tired of touring and close to burning out. He gave up playing in 17 bands, with a few touring, to do Branoofunck. “I don’t want to tour anymore,” Medz said. “I’m doing what I love, and I’m making more money at home.”

Medz was tired of missing graduations and birthdays to be on the road. He was wrapping up a tour with TryMore MOJO right after the pandemic. He first heard of Menace on the radio and remembered his name because of how clean his transitions were from one song to the next. He saw Menace DJing at Trees and Sandaga 813, struck by how he was educating the crowd by playing the original samples before certain songs. Menace was speaking Medz’s language, an exchange of hip-hop history and knowledge that comes with being a student of the genre. He DM’ed him, asking if they could play together.

“I said, ‘Man, look, I’m coming off tour. I’m a big fan. I would love to play with you,'” Medz recalled. “I do this thing on the side, but I’d rather do this with you. He was like, ‘All right, well, come on and set up.’ I was like, ‘When?’ He said, ‘Saturday.'”

“It was at BrainDead,” Menace said.

“He was like, ‘Come on down.’ … The driver for the tour band drops me off on the corner, and I pull out my drumset right then and there,” Medz said. “I haven’t been on that damn tour bus since.”

Menace, who has been DJing since he was 15, was ready to quit, too. He started in radio in 2003 (on-air in Dallas from 2013 to 2023), and DJed parties and nightclubs in the ’90s. By his early 40s, he didn’t want to be the old guy in the club, spinning new rap he didn’t like. When DJ Leo J invited him to do Saturday nights at BrainDead, and Medz joined him, he saw their potential to become a hip-hop duo. “I knew there was no pressure to play new shit, no pressure to pack a dance floor,” Menace said. “It’s just DJing. We are playing the music we love. And it became huge. So now I’m 100% back to DJing. I’m at home making new edits all the time, I am remixing shit. I’m looking for the instrumental of this. I’m 24/7 again.”

They do at least 200 gigs a year, totaling 800 since they started four years ago, and earn a living in Dallas without traveling.

“What I think we have captured right now is this select group of people that are about our age who have adult kids now, and so are back to going, ‘Hey, what do I do with my time?’ And we’re the only thing that’s providing them with what they want. They can’t go anywhere else and find the music that they love, that vibe that they loved,” Menace said.

“All the clubs are now playing all the new stuff,” Medz said.

Dance floors at clubs spinning new music often fill up more people standing around than those moving to the beats. Branoofunck’s crowd comes out to dance. “It’s not the same thing,” Menace said. “We’re giving people our age who are back to trying to go out something to do.”

The Sound of Deep Ellum

The shows at Armoury D.E. resemble a block party tucked away off Elm Street. Their fans embrace East Coast rap, West Coast rap, reggae, R&B and soul, and don’t complain about the records they spin. In a block party environment, the crew with the biggest speakers usually wins.

“The sound that we have travels at least this whole block, no matter which way you go. People can hear it from that point. And they’re constantly telling me, ‘I couldn’t find y’all, I just kept following the sound,'” Medz said. “Most of the time, they won’t come through the front doors; they go to the back. Find us and come through the front. We have that absolute block party mentality, whose speakers are bigger kind of mentality. And our speakers are bigger.”

“I think that people hear it, they walk up and they see, ‘Oh, wait, this is different. A drummer is playing. They hear one of their favorite songs, and they see the crowd. That’s what is infectious about it, too. The crowd. It’s such a vibe,” Menace said.

Branoofunck has established itself as “the sound of Deep Ellum,” concert promoter Gavin Mulloy said. Mulloy first saw them at BrainDead, which closed in 2021, and they impressed him with the depth of hip-hop songs they were playing that aren’t on most of today’s setlists. He followed them when they moved to Armoury D.E. “I have gone over there and seen 20 Sundays in a row at one point,” Mulloy said. “My buddy owns the bar right behind them, and even when they’re at capacity, you can sit on the back patio of Elm Street Saloon and hear them over there.”

Mulloy says Branoofunck is making the neighborhood better by getting people to visit Deep Ellum regularly to see their afternoon or evening shows. “They just bring positivity,” he said. “Their afternoon [set] is the happiest thing that goes on anywhere in Dallas and Fort Worth. It’s what Deep Ellum is supposed to be about when we do it right. It’s people that don’t know each other coming to hang out, and everybody is just having a great time.”

Branoofunck usually plays from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Sundays, but has shifted its hours from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., just early enough to get your partying in before being a responsible adult for the work week. Josh Smith of Banjos to Beats, who, with Amanda Smith, became the entertainment directors of Armoury D.E. in early 2022, was responsible for booking Branoofunck. The couple saw their potential when Branoofunck’s community was budding at BrainDead and wanted to find them a new home after the brewery shut down. Smith said Branoofunck brings an authentic connection to the local community, a passion for hip-hop culture and a high-level understanding of past and present music trends.

“Menace’s dedication to bringing creative edits and new twists on classic tunes, coupled with the layers created by Medz behind the kit, certainly helps to check all of those boxes,” Josh Smith wrote via email.

What makes Branoofunck different is that admission is free. In Dallas, there are many options for hearing hip-hop, like going to a club with expensive bottle service to see a rapper perform or paying for a ticket to a show. Branoofunck’s fans choose them because the goal isn’t to be seen; it’s about enjoying good music.

“People are tired of that plastic club life,” Smith wrote. “They want real connections. They want to hear deep cuts and classics in an environment that is welcoming and non-judgmental. As a society, we are longing for communities similar to the one Branoofunck provides.”

Branoofunck Worldwide

At every Branoofunck show, you’ll see someone wearing gold Branoofunck hoop earrings and a Branoofunck name plate, keeping their style a throwback to ’80s and ’90s hip-hop. Menace gives them a shout-out, urging fans to buy some merch and throwing in bad jokes about how their merch has expanded to pillowcases, nipple rings and other random memorabilia. Janette Pantoja, their “merch girl,” said the energy remains the same at all their gigs. (Branoofunck also does Thursdays at The Revelers Hall and Saturdays at The Alley Music House in Addison.)

“The first time I ever went, I was immediately hooked,” Pantoja said. “It’s such an addictive feeling to be in that type of environment where everybody around you loves music just as much as you do.”

Pantoja, who has a background in fashion and makeup, did merch for their opening slots for Raekwon, Pete Rock and Common before she became the designated hostess, greeter and merch correspondent at the party. She now sees regulars mixed with fans who travel across the country – and a few international ones – who hear about them through social media or the grapevine.

“Slowly but surely, you start to meet everybody. And then it just becomes like this little family. There are regulars that everybody knows everybody, and then there are people that we know,” she said. “Like on Sunday, we know who the new people are. We’re like, ‘Oh, it’s their first time.'”

For a pair who isn’t determined to travel, their success at home now has them thinking about taking the show back on the road. They just wrapped up a three-day residency at St. Thomas, where about 30 people from Dallas flew out to see them.

“We want to do Branoofunck worldwide,” Menace said. “I’m getting hit up by people in Miami like, ‘Hey, I haven’t seen you in forever.’ We got a message from somebody in Australia the other day who wants to book us, so we’ll see what happens.”

Give the Drummer Some

It’s an hour before Branoofunck wraps up their set at 10 p.m. The party has reached its apex, with people gathered in front to line dance. The birthday table has ordered several rounds of shots throughout the night. The get down is going up, taking us through unexpected corners of music that go from Digital Underground’s “The Humpty Dance” to Chaka Khan’s “Ain’t Nobody.” Two guys at the birthday table are rapping along to Bell Biv Devoe together before absolutely losing it when Michael Jackson comes on.

Carmalita Robinson has been dancing all night. She is a Branoofunck fan who comes at least once a week. Her first time was in 2023 after her sister told her about them. Seeing them took her on a trip down memory lane.

At Armoury D.E., she can relive her younger days when she listened to ’90s and underground hip-hop with her friends. Now in her 50s, she’s in a different place, but the energy from back then remains the same. This is therapy that makes her feel good and happy.

“What I love about this place and the vibe is that you have all walks of life. You have all kinds of people,” Robinson said. “You have all ages, all races, and there’s never any negative energy. Everybody is just having a good time and vibing to the music. Everybody is feeling it, and that’s what we are here for. It’s all love, and you can feel the unity.”

Even though they don’t play hip-hop songs past 2010, they keep it fresh by playing modern tracks like Kendrick Lamar’s “Squabble Up” and Clipse’s “So Be It.” This Clipse song wasn’t even officially on streaming, yet Menace already had a rip of it.

Medz has hopped off the stage, saying what’s up to fans who stick around. He gets a few hugs. He took one break during the set, his endurance unmatched. They’ll be back on Sunday to do it again because the party doesn’t start until Branoofunck walks in.