Review: Vast Aire, Cecil Otter, Muja Messiah
Turf Club, St. Paul
Saturday, Oct. 11, 2008

by Ira Brooker
10/14/08

“How many of y’all got that Mpls Massacre?” Muja Messiah barked from the stage, referring to his own recent album. Nary a hand went up. Undeterred, Muja gave the crowd a mild scolding before launching into a recap of his prolific year to date, pulling out snippets of summer hits like “Amy Winehouse” and his reworking of M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes.” What was presumably intended as a refresher course seemed to be more of an intro to the Turf Club’s receptive but subdued crowd. Muja wondered aloud several times how the tracks that bring down the house in Minneapolis could be so foreign to a Saint Paul audience.

If Saint Paul’s collegiate crowd isn’t quite as well-versed in the local hip-hop vernacular as the folks across the river, Saturday’s four-act set showed that the capitol city is no less hungry for the music. Lincoln, Nebraska’s An Hobbes and Mo Izrael kicked things off with fast-flowing, politically conscious lyrics set to fractured jazz and rock riffs. The crowd responded with mild appreciation at the start of the set, but by the time Hobbes and Izrael built up to a final chant of “This music can save my mind / This music can save the world,” the duo had won over a fair number of audience participants.

That good will kept building as Doomtree’s Cecil Otter took the stage, the local crowd showing a bit more love for a hometown hero. A funk- and disco-heavy interlude by DJ Paper Tiger set the mood for a dark but vibrant Otter set that drew heavily from his recent Rebel Yellow album. Of the evening’s performances, Otter’s was the most archetypal of Twin Cities hip-hop, infusing literate, often melancholy storytelling with head-bobbing beats, flashes of humor and nods to pop culture relics like “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure.”

Next up was Muja Messiah, whose undeniable stage presence seems almost antithetical to the Twin Cities’ “emo-rap” reputation. A performer who will not be ignored, Muja preceded his set with a litany of his past accomplishments and a mini-rally for Barack Obama (almost certainly preaching to the choir). A progressive energy ran through all of Saturday’s sets, as election registration workers canvassed the crowd throughout the evening. Muja and the audience were happy to follow that vibe, with politically charged numbers like his breakout single “Patriot Act” bringing to mind the energy of a young KRS-ONE. The dance floor crowd grew more and more engaged as the aggressive, high-energy set raced along with Muja and his crew exhorting the powers that be to “salute me or shoot me” and the audience to call him “the black honky.” By set’s end, they appeared ready to call him anything so long as it kept the music rolling.

After Muja Messiah’s charismatic performance, a drop in energy seemed inevitable, but enthusiasm still ran high for headliner Vast Aire. Rapping alongside frequent collaborator Double A.B., the Cannibal Ox crew member brought an unmistakable New York feel to the stage. Aire’s imposing frame and gruff vocals made an oddly congruous counterpoint to the evening’s mostly Midwestern vibe. The audience was right on top of it, with a small but vocal knot of hardcore Def Jux fans flowing right along with the big man on bizarre verbal smackdowns like “I came up on the streets / you came up in a Smurf village” and “This ain’t Parker Lewis / You gonna lose.”

Perhaps the most encouraging aspect of the evening from a performer’s perspective was the steady swell of audience enthusiasm. If, as Muja Messiah suspected, the bulk of the crowd came into the evening ignorant of some of the area’s finest talent, more than a few left the Turf Club Saturday night as full-fledged converts to the Twin Cities scene.

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Ira Brooker