Standing in line is just a part of the city
experience. Though, I have never enjoyed this ritual, on a wet Friday night on
the Lower East Side in New York City, I witnessed something truly special while
I stood on the sidewalk outside the Nuyorican Poets Cafe trying to keep dry.
As time stood still and the conversation with my
two fiends grew weary and monotonous, I began to feel as if there was no end to
this line of people and that I might never even get to see the inside of the Café.
Then suddenly, like a thunderbolt from
the heavens, I was blessed by a performance that came out to find me on the
sidewalk. Two young men dressed in street clothes addressed the crowd,
announcing their presence and commanding our attention.
We all watched in complete silence as the two
fearless performers engaged in a back and forth, lyric after lyric, rhyme after
intercut rhyme, a display of verbal dexterity. Each poetic verse was
accompanied by hand gestures and body movements that even someone a block away
could have deciphered and appreciated. The two men were fearless. One even
jumped on and off of a stranger’s parked car in the heat of his performance. “I
felt the vibe and I went with it,” remarked the young MC.
As their performance went on, it was as if the
two men fed off of one another’s energy. Every time one man started a sentence,
the other finished his thought. As one reached the peak of the emotion he was
expressing, the other took control and pushed that same emotion even further.
To the passerby, it must have looked like a fistfight was about to break out,
but we were lucky enough to see it for what it was. It was art in one of its
most complete and unapologetic forms.
But, this was no random freestyle battle. These
two men who go by the names MC Mars Jupiter or MJ for short and Gustav
Gauntlett, represented part of a theater group that was performing the
following Saturday Night at the Nuyorican Poets Café. Though, it may have only
been a sample from their musical told in verse, called Big Apple Turns To Cider, it was something truly amazing to see it
preformed on the sidewalk that night.
As it turns out, both young MCs were somewhat
new to New York City.
MJ hailed from Massachusetts, while Gus moved to the city all the way from
California. Though, they were newcomers on the New York scene, the young
veterans had no shortage of respect for their craft and the city that
originated it. “Everyday we come out and perform out here, we know that there
are artists in the audience,” MJ said. “We always got to elevate our style and
step up to the plate to match that, especially in New York.”
I never did make it into the Café but I still
got a performance worth my time. It just goes to show you that even with no
microphone, no speakers, and no stage, a crowd can still be moved to cheers by
a manifestation of true art on a city street.
Matthew Malysa is a Rutgers-Newark student. Posted September 2009.
