Bumbershoot 2010 day two notable acts: Georgia Anne Muldrow & Declaime, Jay Electronica, The Physics

Day two of Bumbershoot 2010 is over.

Three notable acts I saw were Georgia Anne Muldow & Declaime, Jay Electronica, and The Physics (click names for photo galleries).

Georgia Anne Muldrow & Declaime


Declaime & Georgia Anne Muldrow; photo by Genevieve Alvarez/Seattle Times

Californians Georgia Anne Muldrow & Declaime brought beautiful brokenness to the Fisher Green/State Farm stage early Sunday afternoon and performed offshoots of free jazz: free funk and free rap.

Shuffling/bopping around the outdoor stage wearing all-black-everything, casual Panther style, the pair shot loose, fiery rhymes back and forth over boom-crack backdrops from a DJ. On more soulful/jazzy selections, they indulged in melodic flights of fancy, Ms. Muldrow occasionally splashing into an "off" note and then gently floating through adjacent notes underwater, Declaime singing like a meandering butterfly.

Passersby on Bumbershoot's main pedestrian thoroughfare might've intuited sloppiness, owing to the duo's anti-presentation presentation style. But Muldrow and Declaime seemed to trust their zoned-out vibe would speak for itself, and it did if one was willing to stick around and feel it. Super-textural bass-heavy production from Flying Lotus, Madlib and Muldrow herself helped with that.

At the end of the set, local 10-year-old rapper Jahyaire Wilson jumped up on stage by invitation and promptly took control of the microphone, calling for hands in the air and rapping lyrics that fit with Muldrow/Declaime's peaceful message. The performers smiled and clapped, encouraging his sudden star turn.

Jay Electronica

Jay Electronica, Jah Jigga (to his right), and fans; photo by Genevieve Alvarez/Seattle Times

One of the weirder, more careening, more deliriously unscripted hiphop sets I've seen in a while followed Georgia Anne Muldrow & Declaime on the Fisher Green/State Farm stage and belonged to New Orleans rapper Jay Electronica (terrible name, great lyrics). He rapped technically perfect, subtly psychedelic lines with a gruff baritone voice and pronounced every word intelligibly, but between songs appeared unhinged, yelling about choking women during sex ("only if they want to") and oversharing about drugs ("I wrote this song on DMT," and, pointing at a guy in the audience, "he's got Adderall").

Mr. Electronica invited the entire audience to get up on stage with him, and about 100 people did, which didn't go over well with Fisher Green security at all. They were in everyone's face, trying to get people to stand down, but didn't succeed until after ten-year-old local rapper Jahyaire Wilson again grabbed the mic and got a few freestyle verses off. The young scene-stealer introduced himself as Jah Jigga and didn't rap quite so gracefully as he did a few hours earlier on stage with Muldrow & Declaime, but did fine, and Jay Electronica commended him on his bravery to seize the moment and go for it with such gusto.

The Physics

The Physics' Thig Natural; photo by Genevieve Alvarez/Seattle Times

We talked about it in a video interview at EMP before they went on stage at the Sky Church, but the three members of local hiphop trio The Physics really deserve some kind of award for how deeply they tap into the summertime essence of Seattle. They have a song called "Coronas on Madrona," and that's how the group's music fits in around here, an easy accompaniment to drifting from barbecue to swimming session to riding out along the crescent cluster of parks on Lake Washington from Madison to Seward.

Brothers Thig Natural and Monk Wordsmith rapped chilled out and amped up over the two-step sounds of their backing band — guitar, keys, trumpet, drums, back-up singers: all tastefully restrained — and when producer Justo grabbed the mic for a verse on closing anthem "Ready For We," female shrieks were heard from the roughly 200+ person crowd.