bbno$, pronounced baby no money, walked onto the FEST stage wearing a white tank top, white bomber jacket, pleated green pants and his signature pink toque — that’s what Canadians call a beanie. The Vancouver native was the opener for this year’s DePaul FEST.

FEST is DePaul University’s annual end-of-the-year concert organized by The Office of Student Involvement (OSI) and DePaul Activities Board (DAB). It is one of the oldest music festivals in the city of Chicago, preceding Lollapalooza by six years.

Although FEST was put on hold for the past two school years due to Covid-19 shutdowns on campus, the concert was brought back once again.

Every year, both student performers and established artists are featured in the concert lineup. This year, the opener was Alexander Gumuchian, the man behind the rap persona bbno$.

bbno$ started out by making fun music with friends to upload on SoundCloud, until he found  prominent success overseas in China and committed to launching his career. Since then, bbno$ has developed a cult following domestically and internationally. He’s found mainstream success, charting on Billboard and going viral on TikTok. His dedicated fanbase sports his signature pink toque at his shows, singing along to every word.

A few toques could be spotted in the crowd as the sun started to set on the Lincoln Park quad ahead of bbno$’s set. Students gathered at the FEST barricade to get close to the Canadian rapper. His high-energy performance consisted of a mix of recent releases, including “mathematics” and “piccolo,” along with a selection of songs made with his frequent collaborator and fellow rapper Yung Gravy.

In an exclusive interview with The DePaulia, bbno$ named his top three favorite songs to perform: “help herself,” “Lalala,” and “edamame.”

During his headlining shows, he enjoys singing the lulling melody of the breakup song “help herself” with his fans. At FEST, he invited the audience to “cry together” as he performed the sad hit.

Also in his top three were two familiar crowd favorites.

“I’d be stupid to not say ‘Lalala’ or ‘edamame,’ because they’re my biggest songs,” the rapper said with a smile.

Both tracks blew up on streaming and social media due to their hypnotic melodic flows. On TikTok alone, the songs “Lalala” and “edamame” have been used in 13 million videos combined.

At the end of bbno$’s set, the audience buzzed as the familiar intro to “Lalala” started to play.

The song starts with bbno$ asking producer Y2K “did I really just forget that melody?” The producer then hums the line back to the rapper who launches into the catchy chorus.

In the crowd, phones lifted to capture the rapper performing his biggest hit, only to get interrupted by “Never Gonna Give You Up,” the classic Rick Astley hit that inspired the Rickroll meme.

After performing the first verse of “Never Gonna Give You Up” amidst the audience’s laughter and visible eyerolls, bbno$ gave the attendees what they wanted, restarting and finishing “Lalala” in full.

There were other tongue-in-cheek moments during the show, including a poetic reading of a recipe from Richard Simmons’ “Never-say-diet” cookbook.

The rapper is known for playing into internet culture; he is not afraid of being a little eccentric. Recently, after performing at the JUNOS, Canada’s biggest music award show, bbno$ made a “public service announcement” to the viewers, celebrating the end of his celibacy.

He told The DePaulia that impromptu moments like that are all a part of the show.

“I didn’t really have a thought process, to be honest; I kind of was just winging it,” bbno$ said about his performance. “But, you know, put a show on for the people. Everyone always fits in between the lines. They always do this, they do that, or they do that. So why not just like, you know, lose your mind?”

That sense of humor carried through in his performance at FEST. bbno$ wasn’t afraid to engage the crowd. He ate the Cheez-Its that the FEST volunteers were handing out, invited a student on stage to perform Yung Gravy’s verses and ended his set with a fun collection of popular dance music.

Students fed on his energy and decided to orchestrate an impromptu moment of their own.

Between songs, a group in the crowd invited the rapper to meet them at a local Lincoln Park bar, shouting “Come to Kelly’s!”

“I’m not coming to Kelly’s,” the rapper responded, a little confused.

When the crowd booed and began chanting the name of the bar, he conceded.

“Maybe I’ll come to Kelly’s,” he said, appeasing the audience before launching into the next song.

But after the show, bbno$ admitted he wasn’t planning on going out. He told The DePaulia that he was going back to his hotel to sleep in before an early morning flight back to Canada.

bbno$ is in the middle of the Canadian leg of his world tour. After FEST, he’ll perform approximately 110 more shows across the globe, wrapping up his tour in December. He’ll only have a short break and then launch into work again, preparing for his album set for a Sept. 9 release next year.

“I’m gonna have a week off with my family and do Christmas, and then go to perhaps Barbados and then write an album for two months and not use my phone,” he told The DePaulia. “It’s gonna be great. I can’t wait. That’s pretty much my life until February or March.”

At DePaul, students are anticipating a summer break that is much closer in sight. The DePaulia asked bbno$, who has a degree in kinesiology, what advice he had for STEM majors who are preparing for their final papers and exams.

While he would not recommend doing this, he told The DePaulia that he paid a friend $500 to write a final paper for a class about birds he took unrelated to his major. Flipping that into a more positive light, he advised students to collaborate with their peers.

“Use your friends and study,” he said.

Beyond study tips, bbno$ plugged one thing he thinks people should try. He enjoys Vietnamese food because it’s tasty and he doesn’t have to worry too much about his dairy or gluten allergy when choosing a Vietnamese dish.

The DePaulia asked bbno$ about a clear essential to his brand.

The pink toque is a bbno$ staple, but contrary to what you might believe, he doesn’t have a stockpile of hats. The toque is a treasured item in his wardrobe that isn’t easily replaced.

“Yeah, it’s very well worn,” bbno$ said about his toque. “I’ve only had two of these in my whole career. I was in London, and [my brother] threw it out into the crowd. I was very disappointed. But that happened like three years ago. So this is a three-year-old toque.”

The pink beanie is the only predictable part about the rapper. Aside from sporting the signature  toque, you never know what bbno$ will do next.