Three mics, three chairs, and three bottles of water sat side by side, but only one stage. Hip-hop and pop tracks played in the background, somewhat unfitting for the dark clad crowd filling up the couches which made up the front two rows. Coeur d’Alene is a long way from the Big Apple, but we got a taste of what grows there April 9 in the NIC SUB basement when a group called the Mayhem Poets dropped by our small Northwestern city.
A mix of rap, theater, poetry, and soul, the Mayhem Poets’ performance brought up heavy subjects from death, to self-loathing, to the dark side of consumerism, while finding ways to stitch comedic relief into their delivery.
Mayhem Poets consists of three members, Kyle Rapps, Scott Raven T, and Mason Granger. The group has been touring full time for about six years now, but have been together for more than 12 years, tracing back to their early start at Rutgers University.
The night started off with some light-hearted poems, each artist giving the audience a taste of who they are and where they come from. The Mayhem Poet’s style is what might be considered freeform poetry. A beat can develop, but there is no set timing to the delivery.
“In New York, f— you means I love you. Here you guys are really polite, which I don’t trust,” said Rapps.
“Most of our shows are in inner city schools, rap battles, hip-hop performances, a lot of places where I am of the minority. Usually people take one look at me and they’re like, do you rhyme? I’m so white, I make the Pillsbury Dough Boy look like Samuel L. Jackson. So maybe don’t consider what I do flowing, ‘cause I’m so white I walk outside during a heat wave and people think it’s snowin’,” rapped Raven T. “I’m more than just a color man, I’m an entire box of crayons, so put away the stereotypes and realize that I’m just a man.”
Next, they entertained the crowd by reciting what they deemed a “one word poem,” including regular words, to the strange and the odd when viewed in the context, to words that invited the crowd to shout out the word with them.
The scene became more intimate as each rapper took their turn, reciting solo poems. Granger incorporated recorded sounds into one piece, using them to dramatize his poem to a further extent; the poem was about a war between Granger and his refrigerator. The message seemed to be that many foods war against our good health.
“I’ve never been to a poetry slam,” said J. Kane, 20, journalism, after the show. It was something to be seen. The fact that it involved an element of performance rather than just reading it off a page… it was definitely something that was rehearsed, a lot of time went into it, very entertaining.”
The Mayhem Poets named themselves after “Project Mayhem” in the movie “Fight Club”; what this alludes to they did not share, but perhaps gave some insight. “One of the most important things in writing poetry, especially for someone just getting started, is to not be afraid of whatever comes out of you. Let your brain go wherever it wants and let your pen follow. Then after a while, you can start playing with that and try to direct your brain more and more towards whatever form you’re going for,” according to a statement by The Mayhem Poets.
