Themselves, Whelan’s

Posted on October 19, 2009 by Adam Lacey

It’s slightly tiresome, I know, to point to the bemusing braggadocio of contemporary mainstream hip-hop, and to the dilution of a celebrated and revolutionary art form in the mainstream by such pecuniary whores as Soulja Boy, P.Diddy, 50 Cent et al.

So it’s also a thrill that labels and collectives like Anticon exist, to give a balance to the art of hip-hop, its offshoots and its extended musical brethren, and to allow for experimentation and expansion of what is essentially a very straightforward musical medium.

Adam ‘Doseone’ Drucker and Jeffrey ‘Jel’ Logan are Themselves, two parts of the out-there Subtle sextet and a quarter of the founding fathers of San Francisco’s Anticon label. Touring their third full-length album, CrownsDown, the duo are set up onstage in a thoroughly old-school style with a couple of drum machines, samplers and microphones.

With a half-full crowd staring expectantly at them, Drucker nervously jokes about anything he can think of (fat people on their airplane here being a favourite) while throwing out random bits of ‘thinking out loud’ wordplay and gently ribbing Logan.

Here, Doseone is the sole definitive frontman, while Jel shyly pops up with the odd retort in response to a barrage of questions and statements being flung around by the hyperactive, mohawked Drucker.

The set that follows is a great example of Themselves at their best, and worst, and although the freneticism, abstractness and nasal tones of Doseone are not for all, the duo stick to a beat-heavy set that flows, for the most part, with a lot more consistency than some of their more headphone-friendly, sprawling, schizophrenic recorded works.

Dose is a nerdy, goofy, wise-cracking intellect, constantly trying to combine the varying schticks of stand-up comedian, MC and mercurial frontman with the apparent wisdom, intelligence and off-time cadence of a Beat poet.

The criticisms of Dose being a wilfully obscure elitist of verbiage are sometimes fair and he can miss the mark as often as he hits it but there is no doubting that he knows how to perform, engage and rhyme. He prowls around the small stage aiming pointed couplets at individual audience members yet always managing to get back behind his sampler at the right moment.

It’s also entertaining and reassuring to see the male members of a Whelan’s crowd dance with a lack of self-consciousness and by the time Themselves are nearly finished, ourselves are still going strong. Where things fall a little flat are during the more noodly, obscure samples and beat-free meanderings near the end of the set but if I’m honest, I don’t remember my ass not shaking much in the hour-plus they were on.

Themselves

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Tags: Anticon, doseone, hip-hop, jel, rap, themselves, whelan's