Paul Bass Photo
State House, Sunday night.
Public officials from the governors on down warned people to stay home binge-watching TV Sunday night as temperatures rocketed toward zero and ice made roads slick and dangerous.
New Haven’s Ninth Square music venues didn’t get the memo.
Even on a frigid Sunday night, people were out playing and listening to music until midnight.
At Cafe Nine, George Lesiw was holding court as usual at the Sunday night blues jam. First he did a set of 20th century standards, from the Rolling Stones’ plaintive version of Robert Johnson’s “Love in Vain” to Jimi Hendrix’s “Red House” and “Let The Good Times Roll,” complete with Thorogood-esque smoking solos.
Around the corner, the 21st century was firing up the State House. For two hours, a parade of local male acts tore through short high-energy sets as part of a Wave Only-organized hip-hop Winter Fest. The energy built for two hours as Bugatti203, Say Kuro, and the Wave Only Allstars took turns at the mic. For two hours it was solely a male rappers’ affair …
.. except for one number, a rousing first public performance (shown in video) by an up-and-coming New Havener named D. Monaee of her signature song “Fuck Boy Anthem” (“Talking all that hot shit / You don’t know the game … / I’m on some petty shit / Getting money shit / Throw it back one time on ya homie dick”). She was confident, taking no back seat to male swagger; the betting monaee is that a career was launched.
Then, as midnight approached, female swagger returned to the stage in the form of Snowprah, who broke out of the local hip-hop pack in 2018 with the song “Yank Riddim” (which besides all its radio airplay and viral clicks, was the Independent’s track of the year).
Snowprah onstage.
Snowprah hasn’t been playing up her New Haven roots lately (she spent her teen years living in the Hill and attending Hillhouse), but did on the State House stage Sunday night. She cloaked her swagger more in rock star posture and hypnotic rhythm than in high energy and seemed distracted; it took her two songs to start pumping it it up. Then she previewed her upcoming single (at 6:15 in the video), and took charge, letting men know who really rules her roost:
Now you’re not gonna have control …
Now you’re not gonna have control …
Now you’re not gonna have control …
I eat chickens but I don’t eat cock …
There’s no freak like me …
She closed with “Yank Riddim.” The male performers swarmed behind her, the beat picked up, the crowd chanted along … and the night ended with no trace of the deep freeze outside the Stage House doors.
(Above: The official 2018 video for “Yank Riddim.”)
