Local acts Yea Big + Kid Static brought the funk and Mahjongg brought the noise to Schubas on Thursday night, but the music was put on hold while another Chicago-based act, Barack Obama, accepted the Democratic party’s presidential nomination in Denver.
“We’d like to thank Obama for opening for us tonight,” Stefen Robinson, aka Yea Big, humbly said a few songs into the set. Yea (pronounced “yay”) Big embodies geek hip-hop: His scraggly beard and nerdy glasses are topped off with a sweatband to hold back his thick, short curly hair, while his track short-shorts and tube socks assure you this guy’s ready to move.
After warming up with stretches to two songs (one too long), Yea Big and Kid Static– Big’s lankier counterpart, more plainly clothed in a white T-shirt– ripped into an assortment of spit-fast rhymes and nasty chants. They performed on the floor with the audience, who gave them plenty of room, allowing them space not only for jumping in unison during a chorus, but breaking down into a dance-off at a climax. The beats were strong and the duo’s energy was overpowering enough, and with songs about Mega Man and being told to “eat your sandwich,” Yea Big + Kid Static pulled off their sophomoric humor by letting the crowd in on the joke.