Sketch Tha Cataclysm didn’t have no time for a sad song. Ibn Orator wanted the audience to imagine a world, half comic book and half earth-bound, where death had a voice and they could hear it coming. An Historic was seeing the fire in her eyes. And if The Forest Room could introduce echo terror to the Elm City, Ben Erickson could just as easily rage against it, his tattooed arms vibrating with a suite of lyrics and the flow of guitar and drums.
Lucy Gellman Photo
This was the scene Wednesday night at Cafe Nine, where Sketch — also known by his friends and colleagues as Waterbury-born Armando Acevedo II — had organized a night of hip hop, spoken word, boundless guitar riffs, and some hard-hitting lyrics all under the name “The Almighty Co Sign 2.” Performing to a small but eager audience, artists showcased something that, by itself, doesn’t roll through the Cafe that often: words, spit hot and unencumbered from the stage.
In a welcome change of pace for the intimate music venue, the evening was as much an exercise in hardcore listening — that is, hearing the words that these artists had come to share — as it was a celebration of the varied forms of music that have graced New Haven in the past few years. Sketch and Ibn Orator celebrated the legacy of hip hop and spoken word, their sets focused on fast, clean, and thoughtful lyrics that fell heavy and enchanted on the audience.
“Arcs of idols in the holiest of garments / Rubies out of blood on platinum chains and sonnets/of cocaine and … / so I took a snort of gods and angels of folklore / after that I got a glance at the brochure and it said / visions into paradise…” Ibn Orator rapped at one point in the evening, spinning a web of words as he stood at the front of the stage.
There was also An Historic, whose razor-sharp lyrics match Sketch’s and Ibn Orator’s in intensity, but are wonderfully tempered by the addition of red hot accordion. Connecticut-based Erickson’s rapid, smart lyrics meshed with fast, sometimes playful guitar in a tamer fashion than many of the likes at Cafe Nine (take a listen here).
And for the music-over-lyrics purists in the room, The Forest Room’s layerings in pieces like “Coffee Hike” and “Echo Terror” created a weighty, wordless thing that swallowed the willing audience.
What brought them together was the joy of music making in its complex, nuanced, and resilient, time-honored forms. Ibn Orator perhaps captured it best in a summation statement.
“I started rapping out of necessity, because I felt there was a need,” he said. “Thank you, thank you for accepting me as I am.”
To find out more about gigs at Cafe Nine, check out its events page.
