Each of the night's acts ran through short, sharp sets with very little space in between them, and Dante Higgins was no different. The athletic rapper wasted precious little of his stage time on chit-chat, preferring instead to keep the crowd's collective heart rate up by burning through bar after bar.

The best bits of his performance came from Rhymes for Months, including a triple stack of the title track, "Hell Yeah" and "Hennessey." "Hell" had the Hig Headz up front shouting along to every word as Higgins himself bounded from one side of the stage to the other.

"Hennessy" was a bit more to my taste. (Pretty sure that's a first.) Over a relaxed, bouncy beat, Higgins spat out an amusing, laid-back tale of a day off ruined by drink that managed to honor the style of his Houston rap forebears without emulating it. He also managed to shout-out Skip Bayless on the track, which would have been pretty great even if the song sucked.

After "Hennessey" pricked my ears up, the rest of relatively short set seemed to fly by far too quickly. Higgins celebrated his own apparent ascendency with "Blow Up" from his Rhymes for Weeks mixtape, thanked the crowd and bounced. Once again, the audience didn't really clap or holler or make any other outward display of appreciation. We all just sort of looked at one another and started shuffling towards the door or the bar.

Maybe it only seemed weird because I hadn't known what to expect. "New Houston" is still new to me. Dante Higgins' clever, nimble flow has me feeling pretty good about that resolution, though. Sure beats quitting smoking.

Personal Bias: Curious outsider.

The Crowd: Third Ward in the building. Lot of snapbacks.

Overheard in the Crowd: "Schaub done got us fucked up, mayne. I mean... what?"

Random Notebook Dump: Fly Boy OT and friends made it drizzle in the club by tossing out a bunch of $1 bills. Some of us were too cool to pick them up. Some of us weren't.