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Blue Scholars: Schooling the Researchers

By Brittney ⋅ April 15, 2008 ⋅  Email This Post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

It was an unlikely setting for a hip-hop show. For one, it was staged in the middle of an event called, blatantly and conspiciously, the Pop Conference, and whose attendees were predominantly middle-aged and white. It was also a Saturday, one in the afternoon, and indoors on a day when the temperature was forecast to break seventy degrees for the first time this year. Despite these long odds, though, the Blue Scholars managed to win over the crowd by the end of their forty-five minute set at EMP’s Sky Church.

DJ Sabzi took the stage first, asking a small, awkwardly milling crowd to “make some noise.” He recieved a polite smattering of applause, which made him laugh and note that in Seattle even the clapping “sounds like rain.” It was a bit of a cheap joke maybe, but its hint of self-deprecation (Sabzi himself is a Seattlite) and the casual tone in which it was delivered helped draw the audience in. Moments later Geologic, the Scholars’ MC, took the stage, and kicked off the music with a promise: “You know this song.” Indeed we did — Sabzi had launched a sample of Green Day’s “Brain Stew.” 1990s Green Day is like comfort food for white pop aficionados; the choice was savvy.

As the show continued, so too did the Scholars’ well-played interaction with the audience. “You,” Geologic said once, pointing at a girl in the front row. “You listen to hip hop, don’t you?” The girl nodded, and grinned as if she had been singled out for praise by a favorite teacher. Most of the time, though, the conversation was with the audience as a whole, and had the natural and familiar tone of lunchtime talk among a group of old friends. Sabzi and Geologic chatted about allergies and 80s dance moves, acknowledged the absurdity of the show’s time slot (”I know it’s early as shit, but put ‘em up!”), and managed to throw in an exhortation to support local record stores without sounding preachy or condescending.

The songs themselves were also well-chosen; the duo managed to put together a broadly appealing set without sacrificing any artistic dignity or the social activism for which they’re known. They worked through several tunes, gradually building the crowd’s enthusiasm and excitement, before unleashing their hardest-hitting track, “50K Deep,” about the 1999 World Trade Organization protests in Seattle. “I was there, I’ll tell you right now the pigs started it,” the lyrics unflinchingly declare, before moving onto a power-to-the-people refrain: “Fifty thousand deep, and it sounds like thunder when our feet pound the streets.”

After this intense musical and psychological climax, it was easy to get the crowd’s hands in the air for the final songs and the peace-sign-salute farewell. And the applause at the end? Did it sound like rain?

No, it sounded like thunder.

The Blue Scholars play the Sasquatch Festival on Sunday, May 25.
“Bayani” LP at Amazon

Tags: blue scholars, EMP