Last night, the Vegan Straight Edge Hip Hop Movement steering committee dispatched a field operative to an event of great significance: the first Foekus (aka Foeknowledge aka Naj One) show in 3 years.
Below is the report he sent us:
The show took place in a bar at a strip mall in South Salt Lake City on October 18th, 2009 at 9pm. The opening band (an alt-country band featuring two members or Iceburn) took way too long while real vegan straight edge hip hop heads, a demographic solely represented by myself, stood around waiting for Foekus to jump things off. Little had been heard from Foekus in many years.
I entered the bar silently and alone, beginning this info-gathering mission by heading straight towards a table occupied by numerous straight edge kids (guy with the Beyond shirt: you’re lucky I was working undercover, otherwise that thing would have been mine. Whut.) and Foekus himself. I took up my position against the wall nearby. Foekus could be heard saying loudly to the table that 1) “I don’t have any beats” 2) “I don’t know if I’m performing” and 3) “I forgot most of my lyrics”. It seemed the show itself was in peril. “Find me a drummer” he announced. I watched people take to their phones to get a drummer down there to give this man some beats. Mostly I just stood around turning off all the TVs with my universal remote. I hate bars.
Notables in attendance were former A.L.F. prisoner Jacob Kenison, half of Cherem, and a guy who once thought he had scammed a free hotel room when someone who actually paid checked in and got assigned to that very same room while he was laying on the bed; so he had to jump out the second story window and RUN. Ok that was me.
Foekus got on the mic. A drummer took to the drums. It was clear at that point how many kids in the bar were there to see Foekus.
“I’m-a get on this mic for about 10 minutes. Maybe 15. I forgot most of my lyrics, so let’s see how this goes…”
The only way to capture what happened next is through soundbites. Suffice to say, Foekus can rhyme. Foekus has stage presence. And Foekus SPIT TRUTH. Truth.
Begin quotes:
“….with an X on my hand…(stopping mid-song) wait, I sold that shit out.” (he’s straight again)
“I used to think I was the Earth Crisis of hip hop or some shit”.
“What should I rap about? I’ve been eating vegan again now for one month, maybe two, so I can rap about animal rights again”.
And it continued. The performance was mostly freestyle, as it seemed he was prevented from performing most of his recorded lyrics due to what we might call a “revision of belief”.
The evening closed with the only full song performed that night: “My Story”. He warned the crowd: “Don’t ask me to do this one unless you want to see me cry. I’m serioius”. He asked the drummer to stop so he could do the song accapella. And indeed, it seemed he did get misty-eyed.
Foekus is back. I saw him!
- Anonymous.
