Photo: Lucy Parakhina / Lex Records

After witnessing the first ever Sydney show by hip hop's supervillain DOOM, Matt is still in the lyrical zone…

The crowd be full cheering,
they call for the DOOOOOM
and it sound like boos, jeering,
here ye, he be areeving soon,
Place is a buzz like a hive, dive
Be more packed and pumped
Than shotties on a drive-by
The hotties and the homies slurping foamies, burping stumped

Then yikes, on the stage, some leviathan hyping
a man so big he make the pious get to Skyping
And check where Muhammad is, didn't we spot the mountain?
"What up Sydney?", the leary query he down shoutin'
Pleasant for a wide guy, wise-eyed and bleary in his pitch
And the hesitant fly-by, makeshift residents will bitch
“Get him out on the stage! When’s this posse gonna give?”
Hitch this itching crowd to life support
The rowdy report; they might not live.

Then BOOM, out steps the DOOM
Out-stakes the fake reps as he takes on the room
Man lands in cardigans and sweats with a polo
Hands in pockets as he rockets through sets sold on solos
For a guy with extra pounds, he ain’t slack on grace
Clowns etcetera, all the more for his lack of a face
Crowned with the mask for the whole show, his pace
Is ace, no frowns or asks from this observer’s place
The hype man chimes in, his rhyming so rad
We’re finding this blinding, such timing and vocab
Get these guys a talk show, the chemistry is visible
You all rise for Coco, this loco be more risible
Does he stack all the hits? Soon we’re maxed out for choices
It’s a royal trip and skip through tracks and cartoon voices
Live he’s round and jives and shucks abound
Huxtables across the ground, dorky dancing to sounds

He’s called Vaudeville for reason,
never maudlin this season
He’s springing forth and pleasing
if you’re bored then
Cease your grieving, get to leaving.
You might not be forming pulse, for serious
this is top hoppy-hip performing
Crowd go delirious, yo
I can’t think of no one else with so little ego,
he’s regal, the black bald eagle or Sméagol,
gripping the precious mike and
dripping straight spikes across the hessian net,
yet never lets a sweat trace beneath the metal face set.