Millkzy Introduces Floetry to Dallas in Debut Performance at House of Blues

The first thing you see on your left when you enter The Cambridge Room at House of Blues is a merch table stacked with black T-shirts with the words “Failed Author,” a song title by R&B and hip-hop artist Millkzy.

“I got a lot of hate for a flow that I started. This song is a response to those comments. It is deeper than just the flow; it's about message and meaning,” it reads.

It was over 90 degrees outside on July 17, and his loyal fans were avoiding the heat by checking out chillwave hip-hop. Millkzy is 21 years old and big on TikTok, with over 100,000 followers and one million likes. He has over 953,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, with songs we've been playlisting lately. The kicker with Millkzy is that he’s a rising Gen Z star who emphasizes lyricism and artistic quality, vastly different from rappers who have dumbed down lyrics or bite others to get ahead.

That was one of the many things that stood out to us. His style is called floetry, a fusion of fiction and poetry over rhythmic beats. He writes melancholic songs meant to be heard with your eyes closed. If you think of the bigger picture of the sound of Dallas hip-hop and R&B, he isn’t doing motivational street rap like the New Dallas guys or making revolutionary, socially conscious songs like Bobby Sessions. His alternative R&B is not traditional or throwback, incorporating other sonic elements, often experimenting and genre-bending. He's from St. Louis originally, but doesn’t do the bounce, swing and singsong delivery heard by that city's biggest export, Nelly.
With hip-hop so fragmented these days, Millkzy falls into a lane of his own, making diaristic projects that use the spoken word as his vehicle. His peers are the other disruptors to watch, such as Lexa Gates and Samara Cyn, who offer fresh perspectives and defy genres while still keeping it within the realm of hip-hop. At 9 p.m., Millkzy’s friends on stage told the crowd to give him a round of applause because he worked so hard to get here. He walked on with a towel over his shoulder, opening with “Cry Me a River.” His fans cheered before he did one of their favorites, “Rose in the Winter.” He looked shy at first, maybe stage jitters for his debut performance, but kept his delivery strong, rapping his lyrics with no backing track. “Can’t y'all tell this is the first show? It’s the first one, the first one. I never done this before,” Millkzy says.

The support was overwhelming for Millkzy, who had fans clapping for him and recording his songs on their phones. He attracts a younger audience, most in the crowd looked to be in their 20s and younger, while a few older fans and parents hung out in the back, but they weren’t looking for a chaotic, Rolling Loud-type set. No, this was Millkzy’s version of slam poetry: honest, vulnerable and speaking from his soul.

For the next 45 minutes, Millkzy gave a fan service, performing songs he knows they love, like “The Notebook” and “7 Minutes of Heaven.” They pulled out their phones when he needed flashlights for “Third Person Point of View,” making a comment that watching how a relationship goes bad is really how his life is. They know his lyrics by heart, unsurprising for this crowd in the know, whose best-kept secret is on his way to blowing up.

After “As Friends,” he asks, “Any exes y'all miss?” to a mixed reaction. Maybe some were reminiscing about their old flings? “Y’all supposed to be saying no!” he says with a laugh. Millkzy knew that everyone wanted to hear “Russian Roulette.” After he teased that it was coming, he finally did it to a joyous reaction. Millkzy knew they were going to rap this song word for word, letting them do the first few lines of his verse with his back turned. “Look and put another bullet to my heart again / Once we stop, let's start again / Since we back, I'll treat you better now so we won't part again / Hopefully, you feel a certain way inside your heart again.” The beat, stripped down to a piano, let these emotional words of reigniting a spark cut deep.

After his biggest song, Millkzy could’ve ended the show. Once he went into “From Chi to Saint Mary” and “Floetry,” this portion of the show had songs that were hard to distinguish from one another. Maybe this was Millkzy’s way of testing out songs, keeping ones that got positive feedback and cutting the others off the setlist. With no variation in his performance other than him with a mic stand rapping in front of a DJ, it was a bit one-note that made you lose your attention.

On the other hand, the back-to-basics approach of when hip-hop acts were just a DJ and a rapper might be where he’s going with his performance. We just focus on his words, not the theatrics. This first show has plenty of notes to gather from for his next one on Saturday, July 19, at Moroccan Lounge in Los Angeles, as he’ll likely continue modifying his live performance as his fanbase grows.

In a surprise move, he announced that his EP, the narrator, was dropping Friday. He performed a new song called “heavencanwait (itcan’t)” before saying his goodbyes.


He was endlessly thankful for people coming out. It meant a lot to him, so much so that he offered to take pictures and meet everybody at the merch table.

A failed author no more, he’s a narrator looking to tell his story. We’re the early ones listening.