For Mature Audiences

Jayson Musson on Plastic Little's mirth and madness.

by A.D. Amorosi

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Published: Oct 25, 2006

hip-hop

Stickers of his at Space 1026 read, "PackofRats will stab you in your hip-hop and use your Mos Def CD to scrape ice off my windshield." His lyrics rip into undope MCs, misogynists, porn stars and suicide bombers. He recently tore into some online haters as "white-trash ass, fitted-hat-wearing, tent-size-T-shirt-having white niggers."

Still, Jayson "PackofRats" Musson, MC with Plastic Little, says he's not an angry man. "I'm always just taking the piss," he says with a throaty chuckle.

"Underground hip-hop kids are cute," he says. Linear-thinking indie-beat freaks give Plastic Little a rough time for their electro vibe and dark humor. "I don't know what these kids want — hugs from their moms, maybe?"

"I remember being underground back in Spring Valley," says Musson. That's the New York shire Musson and fellow Plastic Little MC Kurt Hunte ("the dark-skinned black guy to my light-skinned black guy") moved from in the '90s to go to college: Hunte to the University of the Arts, Musson to Temple. Bobby Seale taught there then. If you were a high school socialist and a fan of Black Panther manifestoes, like Musson, you chose Temple.

He certainly didn't come to Philly to MC. "Getting in front of people? Not my genetic code," he says. Though he jumped onstage at Temple's African student union jams, it wasn't until he transferred to University of the Arts and befriended white Rasta Jon Folmar that hip-hop became his vocation.

The two shared a mean-ass sense of humor — dark and bitter. "Like old soup," laughs Musson. But snarky lyrics weren't their thing. With Folmar or Hunte, Musson did conscious hip-hop ("Ugh!" exclaims Musson), live music with fretless guitars and upright basses ("jazz-odyssey shit") and dumb raps over Stereolab records.

Then the three got together with producer/programmer Michael "Squid" Stern. His style — harsh sloppy electro with heavy, frenetic bass — became them. Suddenly goofy lyrics for fuzzy songs like "Foil" ("I like to wrap up everything/ from chicken wings to frank and beans") fit. They found focus through Squid's Northern Dirty South noise. "Squid made something silly into an epoch," says Musson.

They made an EP called Thug Paradise with long-ass raps. "We were just happy to record outside of our living room," says Musson. "But we were just taking up too much time, running on with our genius." The Plastic Little sound blossoms into something richly brutal ("Bum Rush") and beautiful ("1-800-G.R.U.S.T.L.I.N.'") on the brand-new full-length, She's Mature (Tonearm).

The group has a definitive division of MC labor: Musson comes with concepts and choruses. Folmar expands ideas with absurd rhymes and awesome clarity. Hunte adds persnickety between takes on all proceedings.

"Jon's technically proficient. Kurt can be punch-you-in-the-face ignorant or sharp as a tack," says Musson. "I'm the guy who curses most — the least technically proficient." That's selling himself short: Musson's also got a keen skill for provocation. "That'll be on my tombstone: 'He provoked and died alone with cold pizza in his hand.'"

His black-and-white poster art in the "Too Black for B.E.T. Episode 2" show at Space 1026 is certainly provocative. For the most part, his subject matter is Bush, Katrina and Iraq. "But I don't ever want to come off like an activist. There's real activists in the world who're dying," says Musson. But his art show and Plastic Little's music work in different tones of "fuck you." On She's Mature, it's haters, hipsters and hos bugging him.

"With the posters I do all the work. In Plastic Little, I do nearly none," he laughs. Musson does next to nothing in good company.

Hunte and Folmar are equal partners in She's Mature's ribald sarcasm. Diplo, Amanda Blank and Spank Rock are in on the bittersweet joke. So is Steven Ward James, with whom Musson's partnered in the folk band American Sneakers. While guitarist Jim Houser adapts some Wu-Tang Clan for the kung-fu funky song "5th Chamber," Ghostface Killah raps on "Crambodia" with husky gusto.

The Smiths show up, too — as an inspiration for the cover. Plus Morrissey gets quoted throughout Musson's lyrics. Makes sense; they're both miserabilists. And while there's tons of cocaine to be found on She's Mature, it's more in the happy snorting than the deadly dealing.

But Plastic Little is no party rap act. Not unless you're looking for an unfun bash. Like Oz without a wizard, there are poppy fields and prison dramas to be found within Plastic Little's drugs, Sparks and debauchery.

"It's silly," clarifies Musson. "Not innocent."

(a_amorosi@citypaper.net)

 

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