Brian Slattery Photos
Sketch Tha Cataclysm
Four indie hip hop acts connected with the New Haven-based Fake Four record label made good on Cafe Nine’s nickname of the musicians’ living room by holding a show Wednesday night that felt personal and familiar, even as the acts themselves hailed from as close as the Elm City, and as far away as Dallas.
The Portland-based indie rapper Brzowski started off the show with a set of songs that found the artist prowling the stage with intensity while the beats were going, and keeping it light in between.
“It’s great to be with you here in this post-mid-fundemic,” he said, with obvious sarcasm. “This is my first show. Today.”
Brzowski’s hard-hitting beats and rhymes delivered with confident flow let him dig deeper than current events to talk about the problems that the pandemic had exposed. In case the audience missed the message in the lyrics, he took off his sweatshirt to reveal a T‑shirt with the face of Ho Chi Minh on it.
“Ask your grandfather who that is,” he said. “He’ll be angry at you for asking.” During another pause between songs he mentioned that there was a DJ in the Northeast playing his music — for which he was very grateful — who once explained on air that “this is a song about how he’s always on the road.” Brzowski couldn’t help but correct him. “I said, ‘No it isn’t,’ ” he recalled. “ ‘This is a song about converting to full communism.’ ”
Underpinning both the humor and the message was the thrill of performing for others. “It’s good to be here,” he said toward the end of his set. “It’s good to be anywhere at my advanced rap age.” He talked about how, in the depths of the pandemic, fans had rallied to support him through buying music and paying for virtual concerts. “It was wild that the music could keep me alive,” he said.
The 50x50s — Connecticut rappers Sketch The Cataclysm and Deto 22 — built on Brzowski’s energy. “We’re going to do our classic steamroll set and just go,” Deto 22 announced at the beginning of their time, and steamroll they did, moving fast from song to song, trading bars in which Sketch’s angular delivery and Deto 22’s more laid-back flow complemented one another to create a varied sound that still felt ultimately unified. Driving their unique sound were the beats they produced, which often swapped heavier drum samples for lighter, more complex percussion that gave the rappers even more to bounce their words off of.
“More congas!” someone yelled from the audience.
“More congas and handclaps!” Deto yelled back, to laughter.
The Dallas-based rapper heir MAX next took the stage with hard beats and forceful flow, letting his voice break with urgency to let the emotion come through. Brzowski had invited MAX to join him earlier in the evening during his set; now MX returned the favor, and he and Brzowski performed together, acting almost like siblings as they traded jokes before and after songs. The second half of the set found MAX leaving Cafe Nine’s stage to rap directly at the people standing closest to the stage, delivering his message to them personally, almost one on one.
Will Parker, a.k.a. St. Augustine’s Day, a.k.a. Folk Punk Dad, closed out the evening with a set of songs that were raw, honest, vulnerable, and sometimes hilarious. Parker was unapologetic in his approach — “this is a very sad song about when I used to be sad, but now I’m not,” he said to introduce one number — tackling issues like mental illness, addiction, and dealing with the deaths of friends, sometimes all in the space of 30 seconds. He also proved to be a talented freestyler, as he elicited nouns from the audience before a certain song began. The audience gave him “revolution,” “toothbrush,” “cantaloupe,” “beef-fried rice,” and “Cafe Nine.” At breakneck speed, he worked all of them into verses that seemed composed on the spot.
He reveled in the successes of getting better (“give it up for therapy!” he shouted at the end of one song, to cheers) while acknowledging the difficulties. “Don’t tell me who I am,” he screamed into the microphone toward the end of his set. “And don’t tell me that I can / I would rather find out for myself.” Later, he sang that “they say the secret is self-control / but how do you do that / when you don’t have that / and you just want back your soul?” His experiences had led him to a place of real gentleness with himself and others. “You don’t have to hit bottom to start rising,” he sang. His openness felt like a gift.