Image via Gabe Fraboni
Last week, Kanye West and Drake made history. Two of rap’s biggest artists took the stage at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in hopes of bringing more awareness to the case of Larry Hoover, who is currently serving six life sentences behind bars. The event also marked the end of a longtime, volatile beef between Ye and Drake. It was a surreal moment for all who attended or watched the live performance online, and the whole thing came together in just 18 days.
Gabe Fraboni, founder and creative director of PHNTM, who was Ye’s production lead on the Hoover show and produces his Sunday Service shows, tells Complex that an arena concert usually takes a year to produce, but the number was cut all the way down to 18 days for this event. The vision for the show was ideated by Ye and his designer, but it was up to Fraboni and the team to make it a reality. As chaotic as that sounds, Fraboni says it only contributed to the fun of putting the show together.
“Everything that Ye does, it’s as big and as far as you can take an idea,” he explains. “That’s one of the more exciting aspects of working with him. It continuously evolved. Literally, right up until the night before the show, it was evolving.”
The visual concept for the show revolved around using low-lying fog to make it look like Kanye and Drake were above the clouds. To pull it all off, they used 5,000 pounds of dry ice underneath the stage.
Gabe Fraboni walked Complex through the 18 days leading up to the show, speaking about what it’s like working with Kanye, and what’s next for PHNTM. The interview, lightly edited for clarity, is below.
What’s your background in concert production, and how did you get connected with Kanye?
I own a company called PHNTM. I was classically trained in lighting design for theater and then worked my way through a few different musical acts. I worked with Pitbull, Linkin Park, and I still work with a DJ called Martin Garrix. I did all of that solo, not as PHNTM. Then five years ago, I started PHNTM and turned it into this creative agency/production company.
We started working with Ye two years ago in the background, and three months ago in the foreground. We were helping with a whole bunch of 3D scanning in years past. Then we worked on the Yeezy Gap jacket drop this past summer, and we did all the projections on the sides of the buildings. We did the 3D billboard in Japan and helped the whole product rollout with Gap.
Then I formally got introduced to Ye, and we started working together. PHNTM started producing all of his productions across the board and working with one of his creative directors. My goal has always been to help realize the vision, because Ye’s got a vision, to say the least. And I think that the big difference in working with Ye versus pretty much any other artist that I’ve ever worked with is he knows exactly what he wants. It’s more about executing his vision than bringing a vision to the table. Yeah, we ideate on things and put different ideas forward, but at the end of the day, he is the creative. And it’s this force that is just so intense that all of it gets done. So it’s been this really fun process working with him. The scale of everything that we’re doing is just so fun. And then getting to help realize these visions and getting to find ways of achieving these things is creative problem-solving at the highest level.
When were you first contacted to work on the Free Larry Hoover Concert?
We had been doing Sunday Service, and I had worked on the other listening parties in the background. We had turned Sunday Service into this efficient machine, and [they wanted] to take that same approach against a stadium show. So we activated the team and we went for it. That was the thing that came up on this given day, and then that thing turned into reality. That’s a very good example of the force of Ye. He has an idea, and it happens.
What was the vision that was communicated for the Free Larry Hoover show?
The goal was all about low-lying fog, an atmosphere, and getting lost in the atmosphere of it, which is why there was so much smoke. He and Ye kind of ran with it, and as always with everything that Ye does, it’s as big and as far as you can take an idea. That’s one of the more exciting aspects of working with him. It continuously evolved. Literally, right up until the night before the show, it was evolving. But it was all really about this atmospheric play, the big kind of Promethean feel to it. I mean, it’s a 200-foot, diameter stage. It’s massive. And we had 70 or so low-lying fog and smoke units. As we were working through it from a production perspective, it was really about how do we help realize this vision, but how do we also be flexible to the fact that, at the end of the day, it’s smoke? And smoke is subject to wind, and wind is subject to nature, so we have no real control.
On Instagram, you mentioned having 18 days. That sounds atypical for a show of that magnitude.
Yeah, most stadium shows are built over the course of a year.
You also mentioned that the concept was constantly evolving. What was the atmosphere like for those 18 days?
What I really love about my team is everyone just comes to work with a smile on their face. The whole idea around the name of the company, PHNTM, is this idea of, “We don’t really have a forum. We don’t really have a face. We are this force behind things.” And so, there’s an innate sense of a lack of ego that really works. And it leads to a really fun environment to work in, because at the end of the day, the only person who matters is Ye and his ideas. And those are such big personalities that no one from my side really needs to get in the way of that. So, it’s this egoless world that we operate in that works perfectly to support these big ideas. And when you’re working on these crazy timelines, it becomes easy. For me, it was really a testament to the team and the testament to the culture that we’ve been cultivating over at PHNTM of: “Just leave the name at the door.”
What was the biggest challenge of putting together the show?
The special effects were the biggest piece. That was the biggest unknown. Everything else, at the end of the day, is what we do. So, there was a nature of comfort or a feeling that was like, “Cool.” But there’s some guesswork here about how the smoke is going to work. I mean, we had like 5,000 pounds of dry ice underneath the stage. When you’re playing with these sorts of ideas and these sorts of scales, there’s so much guesswork at that point. On the night of the 7th, when we did our first test, there was zero wind. If you look at my Instagram, the first photo I posted that says “Promethean,” that was the test from the 7th. And if you zoom in, you can see there’s two people standing in the middle of that. That wasn’t actually during the show. That was the test when there was zero wind and 100% humidity and everything held. The crazy part is right after this moment, the smoke held in place for almost three hours. So, if we had done this with a live crowd, no one would’ve seen anything.
It was fun because everyone was like, “Thank God this wasn’t the listening parties where the first time they saw anything working was the gig.” I mean, literally half the people would be like, “I want my money back. What the fuck is this?” Again, it’s kind of like you’re playing with something that you can’t control. Then, the night before the show, the wind was insane. It was like 25 to 30 mile an hour winds, and it was absolutely wild. And then the night of the show was about eight miles an hour, and it worked out. It was cool.
What was the most memorable part of the experience from the ideation to showtime?
The most memorable moment was getting them onstage, and having them walk through the arches together and hearing the crowd, and understanding that we had actually done it. I think the other most memorable moment of it was just sharing the achievement with the entire organization. When the show ended, there was an air of, “Wow. We just did that.” It was just a very special thing. There was a very special energy around the entire team. And not just my team. All the way through to the top, there was this really special energy when it was done, of just like, “OK, cool. That happened.” There was very much an air of, “Cool, that was just the beginning.”
What was the moment like just before Ye and Drake walked through the arches. Do any particular emotions or remarks come to mind?
I didn’t really see any crazy nerves. I just felt like it was like, “Cool, this is what we do. Let’s go do our thing.”
Switching gears to Sunday Service, what has been the vision that Ye has communicated to you?
There’s this space that has been called the Donda space, which is where it takes place currently. It started as, like, “OK, cool, this is what we want to do with it. We’re going to tear this part of the building down. We’re going to open these skylights up. We’re going to try this, this, and this.” And it worked. Then it just naturally evolved. Again, one of my favorite parts about working with Ye in general is just letting things really evolve, but then forcing them when it’s time.
What has been your favorite Sunday Service memory?
When we went acoustic. We went from mic’ing every choir member to only using five microphones. There’s just this beautiful acoustic moment of this building that Sunday Service happens in. I remember it just giving me chills.
What is the biggest thing you learned about Ye from working with him over the years?
Just be real with him. That’s really it. That’s the only thing I can say is, “Be real with him.” You know?
What else is PHNTM working on?
We’re going to have a big year. 2022 is going to be big, and hopefully we get to be a part of it. We do a ton of work in the experiential space, always looking for new brands and experiences to develop. And then we do a lot of work out in the Middle East. We’re going to be doing some work on the World Cup with Live Nation. We’re going to be debuting a new show at Ultra. So, that’s going to be a lot of fun. We’re working on a couple of different TV series premieres that are more experiential events. We just did a project with Red Bull, and we’re going to be partnering with them on a whole bunch more stuff coming into the new year.
We’re about to do a really big launch. We’re formally launching PHNTM as a creative agency/production company, in the new year. And then we’ve got a lot of really exciting projects in the works. We’re currently working on building this platform called PHNTM Vision, which is a virtual production software that we’re hoping to deploy on some feature films in the new year. And instead of using a green screen, we’re using LED walls, the same tech that The Mandalorian is filmed on. So we’ve developed our own workflow for it, and we’re partnering with a company called Monolith Studios to start putting it into the world and use it on some feature films. So 2022, I’m hoping for PHNTM, is going to be one of our strongest years yet.