Songs Of Praise

Sometimes, in order to know what you are, you’ve got to be clear on what you’re not. Case study: this nation’s best hip hop proposition by an Irish city block, the scarifyingly young, fiercely talented Messiah J & The Expert.

“Nearly all of the Irish MCs that I’ve ever met,” muses emcee Messiah J (real name John Fitzgerald), “say that at some stage they’ve done the whole American accent thing, embracing Ebonic slang and that, but I never really did. It was always about the natural accent I spoke in. I consciously didn’t want to come across as someone with any kind of pretence: you know, I’m John, I’m a white Irish male. But at the same time, we never really bought into the whole ‘We must be an ‘Irish hip hop group!’ thing either.”
“I think me and John see it as irrelevant,” concurs producer The Expert (Cian Galvin). “Like, we’re just a band. As far as we see it, we’re just trying to make great music.” He thinks. “I don’t know what an ‘Irish hip hop band’ sounds like, anyway.”
Irish hip hop being as much of an anomaly as it still is, you will remember Messiah J & The Expert’s former incarnation: Creative Controle, who gave us those two blazing singles, ‘Check The Vision’ and ‘Bloodrush’, and that splendidly frenetic animated promo (courtesy of Team D.A.D.D.Y). The mutation into MJEX happened with the departure of their turntablist, DJ Mayhem, in early 2002, and the concurrent overhaul of their creative M.O.
“We were getting disillusioned with our influences, getting bored with everything we were doing and listening to,” recalls J. Adds Expert: “We were growing up, basically.”
Sure enough, evidence of a lyrical and musical maturity beyond their years (they’re both 22) is present in spades on their debut LP, What’s Confusing You? , an album less about hip hop’s usual rhythm’n’brag and more about language-and-idea avalanches set to striking beats and melodies. Expert’s production philosophy seems aligned with Buck 65’s or DJ Shadow’s, in terms of putting emotionalism before traditional ideas of what hip hop is or should be: he’s just as likely to hang a rhyme on a beautiful violin phrase or distinctive flute melody as a beat. Indeed, this listener’s current favourite track, ‘Erazors’, is built around an accordion line.
Lyrically, meanwhile… It’s difficult to have an in-print conversation about Messiah J & The Expert without just retyping as many of the words as can fit. Before you on a page, the lyrics read like, well, poetry: dense as hell, with two to three crystalline images and ideas per line, and mid-line rhymes and consonances hitting off each other with jazz-drumkit precision. These are sharp, socially conscious raps, obsessed with the current human condition without being judgmental, and pepper-grinded with laugh-out-loud humour and homegrown Irish slang.
In fact, in terms of seize-the-day positivity and punk rock truth-telling, we reckon J is Damo Dempsey’s equal, even if his modus is a little different. It reminds you that the children of the Dylan revolution aren’t the sole torch-carriers for integrity and deeper meaning in pop music.
“No, I know exactly what you mean,” says Expert. “I think what you’re talking about, folk music - I think that the hip hop music we listen to, like Buck 65, Sage Francis, Sole, is kind of hip hop’s folk music. The artists who influenced us – especially lyrically, for John – are artists that don’t bullshit, they tell the truth.”
Messiah J & The Expert play Whelan’s, Dublin on Saturday, October 11. What’s Confusing You? is out now on Volta Sounds. To read a selection of MJEX’s lyrics (highly recommended) go to www.mjex.com