The Minnesota-based hip-hop collective known as Doomtree, which includes popular underground rapper  P.O.S. played at Tipitina’s Friday night.  The show began slowly, with none of the MCs present on stage.  Producers/DJs Paper Tiger and Lazerbeak started the show, with the latter donning an electric guitar to play some melodic pop songs that were soon accompanied by P.O.S. on electric keyboard. This slow start was certainly not a precursor to things to come. Once all seven members of the group took the stage, things picked up rather quickly. The group launched headfirst into a dizzying array of songs, highlighting the eclectic nature and different styles of its members. Their impressive catalog of songs illustrates a seamlessly woven-together cross-section of the different sub-genres that fall under the hip-hop banner. Each MC brought to the stage his or her own distinct style to create an interesting juxtaposition of sound. For example, the lone female in the group, Dessa, employed a spoken-word poetry influenced sound to accentuate her singing voice which was offset by the raw, quick-fire rapping of  Mike Mictlan.

Unfortunately, the show was cut short by what was ambiguously referred to as “the water  not working,” which I can only assume had something to do with the water treatment plant’s electricity going out. Still, the show was otherwise a faint glimmer of hope in the monotony of today’s popular hip-hop. In fact, many of Doomtree’s lyrics refer to the unfortunate state of hip-hop in which modern performers are just that: performers that rarely have something of substance to say, as opposed to artists.  While Doomtree did not exactly harken back to the glory days of hip-hop, such as KRS-1, they clearly paid tribute to it in their own way.