Kool Keith at the Wow
Words Noah DeWitt
Photos Mike Pearson
The stories are legendary. For example: “One time he came on stage in a space suit with a bucket of KFC and started throwing chicken at the crowd.” Another fable went, “He’s a pimp. No, literally he’s a pimp.” Last Tuesday in the Wow Hall basement between openers I heard a new myth, a first person account of a Kool Keith sighting at a Costco in LA, where he, Xzibit, and several hookers purchased some bulk goods. So no one really knew what to expect of Keith’s Eugene appearance, the first stop of his brief Cascadia tour with Foreign Objects.
For those unacquainted with him, Kool Keith is a man of many aliases. His better-known titles include Kool Keith, Dr. Octagon, Dr. Doom, and Black Elvis; his website lists more than fifty in all, though most were used only once or twice on isolated singles throughout his thirty year career.
He began in ’88 as a member of the New York old school crew Ultramagnetic MCs. He gradually established himself as a solo act, and in 1996 he released Dr. Octagonecologist, a psychedelic, futuristic collaboration with Dan the Automator; it was an instant hip-hop classic. A clever lyricist, Keith stands out starkly from the banal background of mainstream unoriginality. But don’t be mistaken; Kool Keith is not another politically poignant underground rapper who parades a vocabulary of multisyllabic words. His message is more often disturbingly raunchy than profound. He is difficult to pin down, a schizophrenic entertainer with as many personalities as monikers.
He mounted the Wow Hall’s modest stage wearing a sequins headscarf and wielding his microphone. His DJ cued a record from the Ultramagnetic MCs years, and Keith began to rattle off rhymes in a funky old-school pentameter.
In essence, the show was a chronological recap of the many chapters of Kool Keith’s career. After a five-minute spree of uninterrupted free styles (which bested the average written rap), Keith and his hype-men moved on to songs from the Dr. Octagon era. The crowd erupted with excitement for “Blue Flowers” and “Earth People,” two better-known singles off of Dr. Octagonecologist.
With his albums, the listener is able to turn a blind eye to Kool Keith’s less wholesome (i.e., degrading) lyrics. But when confronted with his living presence, one is forced to see the sheer crudity of his words. Aside from a few outliers, Kool Keith’s raps are only about sex. It is sometimes suggested that he means to satirize the misogyny of the mainstream. If so, then he’s doing a great job. Between songs, he asked, “How many ladies here like hotels?” The audience laughed nervously, unsure whether it was creepy or hilarious. He went on: “Who here is a freak? Are there any secret freaks? Ok, who here is a conservative freak? We’re looking for secret conservative confined freaks.” He eventually dropped the issue to play more raunchy songs released under his Dr. Doom alias.
After a satisfying survey of Kool Keith’s contributions to hip-hop, the show took a turn for the worse. For the last twenty minutes or so, Keith and his posse performed half-minute song segments, abruptly ending one and moving on to the next. They were attempting to cram the show’s tail end with as many songs as possible: it was quantity not quality. And it was annoying. Just when you settled into the groove of a beat, the record flipped, the tempo changed, and you had to readjust.
Despite ending on such an irritating note, the overall concert experience was a fascinating and enjoyable glimpse at who Kool Keith really is: a very strange man.
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