The Wake

As I write this, my back aches, my eyes feel heavy, and my homework lies in its typical state of non-completion. And yet I look back on my packed weekend not as a waste of my time or college money, but as a startlingly inspiring cultural experience. Every time I venture out to attend a local rap show, I am awestruck by the way I feel during the show, and carry that with me through the next few days. The shows I wrote about last time proved to be some of the better rap shows I’ve ever attended, and that’s saying something, because there have been some truly astounding performances in these cities. I really hope people appreciate fully what is going on here; the hip-hop scene, not to mention the music scene in general, in Minnesota is something special and truly unique, and I hope dearly that people appreciate it.

There was certainly much appreciation at the Triple Rock and the 7th St. Entry Saturday and Sunday. Muja Messiah’s appearance at the Trock, alongside other heavyweights St. Paul Slim, Paper Tiger and Aby Wolf, was genuinely exciting to say the least. The evening began with Aby Wolf, a folksy singer who seemed to feel a tad out of place at a rap show (She was certainly made to feel welcome nonetheless: One loud man continued to shout words of encouragement, such as “I’m diggin’ that shit!”) She owned the stage during her time, though, with a voice whose range is phenomenal and a harmonic quality that rivals nearly everyone. This girl can sing, and she aimed to prove it. Her songs seemed mostly improvised vocal harmonies looping over one another, creating an atmospheric soundscape which solidified her stance as a solid voice with truly impressive range. Watch out for this girl; she can sing like none I’ve ever heard and she seems ready to take her craft to higher and higher levels. In between acts, DJ Turtleneck dropped some mixology on our asses to keep the place jumpin’ in between sets, and Samahra of Black Blondie added a few words here and there as host of the event. Paper Tiger was next to perform, throwing gangsta tracks over his Doomtree tracks, which served to be quite an interesting meshing of mash-ups. Mike Mictlan came up to perform “Game Over”, for which Paper provided the beat, and gave a preview of the next night’s rap show. Up thereafter was St. Paul Slim, who put on a truly amazing performance and got the crowd hyped. This cat holds it down like few others in the Twin Cities; his flow is sick and his stage presence is untouchable. This is an MC to watch out for.

Finally, the main event, the man himself, Muja Messiah. This man has a charisma the likes of which are rare around here, but surely in a few years plenty of local MCs will be biting his style like crazy. He did a very quick run-through of his mixtape MPLS Massacre, released this March, doing about a bar from each song then speedily moving on. “That was then,” he stated with purpose, “This is now.” He proceeded to do material from August’s official album Thee Adventures of A B-Boy D-Boy, proclaiming summer of ‘08 his and proving it with every word. Mu is an MC of considerable talent, deserving of a much larger crowd than was there. The floor seemed to consist of a lot of his friends, as many of them moved up and down from the stage whenever they pleased. At the same time, there was an ample crowd, but most preferred to be up by the bar area for whatever reason. I will say this much: it was refreshing to see an audience not solely comprised of white people. The crowd was one of the more diverse I’ve been a part of, and everyone there, on the floor or not, was clearly feeling the shit on stage. Mu seemed poised to take over the rap scene, repping MPLS to the fullest and bringing A game to each song. Catch a show by this MC if you ever get the chance. You can feel that this is only the beginning for him.

Worn out after this show, I felt a bit unprepared to head to 7th St. the next day at the early door hour of 6 pm on Sunday. But there was no way I was missing Mike Mictlan and Lazerbeak killing it with their debut, Hand Over Fist. The line-up was wall to wall talent too: The rest of Doomtree did a set first, leading into Chicago’s Flukey Stokes, then Toki Wright, Big Quarters, and finally BAMF himself. Doomtree turned in a quality performance as always, running through a few of the highlights from this summer’s debut to get the crowd warmed up. The highlight amongst the opening acts turned out to be Flukey Stokes, who came to an unfamiliar crowd and tore them apart with his on-point flow and thought-provoking rhymes about the street, life, love, and rap music’s effect on his life. His wordplay was uniquely clever and his presence was one to be remembered. He is apparently putting together an album soon with Lazerbeak, after having met him in Chicago 8 or so months ago. This is damn exciting news, as, having never even heard of this Stokes fellah before, all of a sudden I am instantly a fan, and his raps would fit nicely over Beak’s bombastic and consistently killer production style. He flew out from New York just to be there, and he was quite appreciative: “It’s nice to see a crowd that acts like they at a fuckin’ hip-hop show, man,” he said to his audience between songs. “Where I come from, most people just stand their with they arms crossed,” The crowd certainly showed how into the sound they were, keeping the energy tight throughout the nearly 5 hour long show. Local mainstays Toki Wright and Big Quarters killed as always, bringing their unique sensibilities to this truly diverse rap show. As Mictlan stated later, this line-up was not accidental: Everyone here was a true friend of the main MC, and you could feel the love in the air.

7th St. Entry remains one of my favorite venues for a hip-hop show. The venue is tightly packed and gives a very intimate setting to the music. This becomes necessary for Mictlan, who spits blood and tears his heart out on every song. The butcher sprung from the backstage in his signature luchadora mask, with Lazerbeak in tow, wearing a surgical beak mask and bumping beats on his MPC through latex gloves. P.O.S. stood in back to provide backing vocals on certain tracks, most notably for his collaboration on the album, “Shux”, and Omaur Bliss came out to sing along on “Young Hunger”. The show ended with the whole Doomtree crew belting out “Drumsticks” and standing in back for “Game Over” and the epic closer “Prizefight”, but despite all this supporting backup, this was Mike’s moment in the sun. He rapped like he’d been waiting for this moment his whole life, and he probably had been. Every song had heart and soul tapered in brass-knuckled fists and sharp knives. This man is a powerful MC, and Lazerbeak’s spectacular production provides him with the big sound he needed to take total control of the audience. Turning around revealed a packed house, all present fixated on the powerful presence onstage. The show felt huge; I could hear myself reminiscing on this night 20-30 years down the line.

I felt remarkably inspired by my local rap scene after leaving both these shows, and I sincerely hope that Twin Cities music fans appreciate just what we have here. Every show I go to reminds me that something truly amazing is going on here, and I feel really lucky to be able to feel a part of it. Do yourself a favor and see some of these shows, anything really. There’s so much good going on that you’re doing yourself a disservice if you sleep on it. The scene here is one unlike anywhere else. Folk singer Aby Wolf opening for dirty rap hustler Muja Messiah did not feel bizarre or out of place, and was welcomed by everyone in the audience. Out-of-towner F. Stokes felt a kinship with a crowd who had never even heard of him before. There’s some amazing things happening here in Minnesota music, with a fanbase that is open to a wide variety of new and creative music, and a superbly talented supply of artists here to provide just that. Twin Cities music fans give love to local acts like nowhere else, and the musicians sense that and pay it all back. It’s time to get involved in your local scene; there’s far too many incredible things happening here to miss out on.