There was a show at Jet Lounge last night. I wanted to go for a three reasons:
1. Local rapper D. Risha was performing. He has a brilliant song called "Ebonics" that is a manuscript on Houston slang and I was hoping it'd send whatever crowd was watching him perform it into fits; it'd have been fun to be a part of that. It fell flat last night though. (However, his ending track, , "Fuck D-Risha," a concert-built call and response single from a tape he had in 2008, was well-received.)
2. Noon, the guy that nobody had heard of until he received 93 nominations for the Houston Press Music Awards [actually not that many -- ed.], was scheduled to perform and I wanted to see that he was a real actual human making real actual music. (He actually opened his set calling out the Press, expressing disdain that he'd received so many nominations but had not been asked to perform at the upcoming showcase.)
On a song from Kyle Hubbard's You're Not That Special album, Hubbard makes a really great, really insightful argument: "The truth is not the music, it's the listener's reaction." If this is true, then Noon is undeniable.
When he went onstage, his group of fans, holy fuck they went insane. I talked to him after the show. He said he brings about 60 people to each performance; it didn't seem like a lie. His set included a guitar player (his stepfather, whom he talked about in glowing terms after the show), a guest feature from the absurdly interesting Dante Higgins -- he's one of Houston underground rap's Top 10 emcees, easy, and the very best This Whole Rap Song Will Told In The Form Of A Story guy, without question -- and an attempt to sing Journey's "Who's Crying Now" (a moment as silly as it sounds).
Critically, there are obvious deficiencies in his skill set. But I don't imagine Noon or his flock are concerned with them.
3. Several months ago, while trolling around on Twitter, I happened across a link to a song by a rapper from San Antonio named Worldwide. He was performing last night too. His talent is unassailable. He has an earthy, aggressive, uncomplicated flow (think Big K.R.I.T.) that he delivers with minimal effort and excessive deftness. I suppose San Antonio is several percentage points less shitty than we all had assumed.
However, I REALLY wanted to go for one super reason: To watch Austin's hip-hop conglomerate, The League of Extraordinary Gz.
