“Gimme the fortune and keep the fame! Follow me and repeat the name!” rapped Sotorios Fedeli, front man for Political Animals.
“Clint Beastwood!” the crowd shouted back.
“Shout out to all y’all who came out on a Wednesday night!” Fedeli said.
It didn’t feel like a Wednesday night, though, as Political Animals was fourth in a five-group hip hop lineup at Stella Blues that brought the thought and the party in equal measure, and kept the crowd — which only seemed to get bigger as it got later — moving.
The flavor of the evening was decidedly East Coast. Three of the acts — eMC (from New York) and Mertz and Lynguistic Civilians (from Burlington, VT) were on tour together, en route to Massachusetts. But the general vibe of East Coast hip hop was also in full force.
DJ NEB warmed up the gathering audience with Nas and A Tribe Called Quest before New Haven MC Mister started off the evening with a sly set that got at personal and social struggles with urgency and humor.
Brian Slattery Photo
Mertz.
Mertz and Bridgeport’s MC Johnny Wae delivered impassioned sets that brought up the energy as the front of the room began to fill in.
That set the stage for Lynguistic Civilians. The group has been around since 2010 and made a name for itself in its home state, and on Stella Blues’s stage, it was easy to see why. With three MCs, a live drummer, and DJ NEB still on the deck, the group brought in big energy and focus, though perhaps its not-so-secret weapon was MC LC, whose singing and swinging, syncopated flow put a unique spin on the Civilians’ sound.
That set the tone for New Haven’s Political Animals. The group is unusual in hip hop for having an actual bass player and drummer (Jen Harper and Trenton Wright) in the group. For live musicians, hip hop can present a real challenge, as the genre’s aesthetic grew not merely out of sampled music, but samples of some of the grooviest, most funky music ever recorded. A hip hop rhythm section is facing off, in a very direct way, against recorded history. Harper and Wright were up to the task, though. They kept it simple, tight, and gritty, laying down smoky beats that let DJ NEB, an official member of the band, throw a soundscape of twisted strings, electronics, and organs over the top while Fedeli paced the stage, stalked into the audience, and locked hands with people he knew, all without disturbing the flow. Political Animals solidified their sound years ago and have dug in deeper since. Playing in its hometown in the middle of a string of dates that will take the group all around the northeast this summer, on Wednesday night Political Animals was ferocious.
Long-running hip hop stalwarts eMC closed out the night, going at it until Stella Blues hit its closing hours. The management had to turn on the lights to get everyone to leave. No one was ready to go home yet.