A song that has seen many iterations and one of the most coveted tracks in the BROCKHAMPTON community, “BANKROLL” is the band’s first credited collaboration with A$AP Mob. The track features BROCKHAMPTON vocalists Matt Champion, Merlyn Wood and Jabari Manwa alongside Rocky and Ferg, with each rapper speaking on their massive amounts of wealth and how it affects their daily lives and actions.
The song was first teased back on September 30, 2018, through a promotional video for their i’ll be there tour. The band unexpectedly uploaded a video titled “BANKROLL” to their YouTube channel, featuring a short snippet of a song with a verse from Harlem rapper A$AP Rocky along with Merlyn Wood rapping what seemed to be the song’s chorus. A second snippet of “BANKROLL” was previewed during an Instagram Live session which teased the tail end of a Merlyn Wood verse, and the full A$AP Rocky verse.
No news was heard about the song until the band started their Technical Difficulties stream series during the spring of 2020, when members of the band, especially Kevin Abstract and Henock Sileshi, started teasing that they were reworking “BANKROLL” for an eventual release during the series. The band then teased a new version of the track on their Technical Difficulties live stream on Twitch on May 30, 2020. This new version uses a different instrumental from the 2018 version, has a new A$AP Rocky verse, and features Matt Champion on the chorus and with a verse.
Another version of the song, fan-titled “FERGROLL” due to it being the first rendition of the track that brought along a performance from A$AP Ferg, was leaked online on February 28, 2021. The song featured what eventually would become Ferg’s final verse on “BANKROLL” and a back-and-forth verse from Merlyn and Matt Champion. Merlyn’s contributions to the verse eventually became his verse on the final version of the song.
The track’s official release was confirmed by BROCKHAMPTON when they revealed the official track listing for ROADRUNNER: NEW LIGHT, NEW MACHINE on March 31, 2021.