"Yo, there was a lot of crazy misogyny on the stage tonight," Saul Williams declaims. And he's not wrong.
While UK newcomers Diversion Tactic stick mainly to rapping about their capacity for alcohol ("You spill my pint/That's 'Death Wish', like Michael Winner" gurgles rapper The Chubby Alcoholic, striking the right balance between menace and comedy), New York trio J-Zone pull out all the tired cliches about "bitches" and "hos".
So it's up to the heavyweight thinkers at the top of the bill to inject some consciousness into this celebration of underground hip hop, the 50th edition of the estimable Scratch club.
Anti-Pop Consortium are beyond odd. Two figures in shades and unmatched Mohicans operating small keyboards centre stage while a rapper and sax player meander between the clunking, metallic sounds they produce.
It's as abstract as a Pollock drip painting but structured like the Lloyd's building, a metallic outer shell giving a brittle feel to hip hop of deeply unfamiliar nuances.
At times it's like listening to some heavy avant-garde jazz, at others akin to hearing what Afrika Bambaataa's Soulsonic Force might be doing if they were still on the go. Think Weather Report re-mixed by T La Rock and you might be close. It's addictive, but you're not sure exactly why...
Mike Ladd, meanwhile, has brought a full band with him, giving his rich poetics a jackhammering backing. Guitar, drums and keyboards are all added to the mix, while the New Yorker orchestrates the sonics from a keyboard laden with percussive sound effects. He saves the best cut for last, a funkiness underscoring his wordplay, the innate good humour in his
performance winning him new friends.
But it's Ladd's misfortune to have to take the stage after Saul Williams. The star of the hit 1998 movie Slam is basically a performance poet, but with a street edge that that designation doesn't normally convey.
His compositions are astonishing - free-form constructions that exude an intense spirituality and are developed from a unique world-view. "We put language in zoos to observe caged thought/And toss peanuts at P-Funk and intellect," he rails. "And motherfuckers think these are metaphors!/I speak what I see".
Provocative, possessed of fathomless depths and with an instinctive inability to disperse lazy thoughts, Williams has got to where all rap ought to have reached in the 21st century. And, in the company of fellow travellers like APC and Ladd, he's part of a movement that's bringing something weightier to a genre that once again stands at a crossroads, self-hate, sexism and lack of perception threatening to marginalise its impact.
Hip hop might not think it needs a saviour at the moment, but Saul Williams has arrived anyway. All praise.
