Recap CunninLynguists at High Noon Saloon

From the moment CunninLynguists MC Deacon The Villain bounded up the steps to the High Noon Saloon's stage Friday, his over-size frame swinging and the rhymes of "Broken Van (Thinking Of You)" smoothly power-drizzling through his mic, it was clear that the Kentucky rap trio works with the stage in mind. His equally big-shouldered, fast-drawling fellow rapper Natti, and their scrawnier, plaid-shirted counterpart Kno soon followed, and for the next hour, the three took songs that were already solid and made them hungrier, feistier, and sweatier. Even the touring DJ, FlipFlop, occasionally pogoed up and down behind his turntables.

As imposing as the trio's masterful delivery and Natti and Deacon's thick, constantly pumping arms can be, each verse felt more like a conversation than like a barked display of skill. The group reinforced this down-to-Earth quality early in the set by putting a voracious rendition of "KKKY," a conflicted hymn about their home state, pretty close to a couple of goofy weed-themed jams, including "Never Come Down (The Brownie Song)." After that song, Kno—who creates many of CunninLynguists' elegant-but-gritty minor-key beats but is as sharp an MC as his companions—asked an older man standing in the front row about his weed-smoking habits, or lack thereof.

Kno took charge of the funny, disarming stage banter throughout the set, at one point razzing a fan up front who apparently didn't get into the group's take on Ludacris' "Move Bitch" (incorporated into their own song, "Move"): "I know it's too vulgar for you," he said, and suggested she replace the phrase with, "'Excuse me, ma'am, you are in the line of trajectory...'" He also got the crowd to give the previous night's Minneapolis crowd a collective middle finger by saying, "Minneapolis said Madison was soft as shit!" Speaking of banter, throughout the show, the projection screen above the stage displayed a Twitter feed from the #SJT ("Strange Journey Tour")—no word on whether the guy who tweeted for "the cutie in the front row" to text him had any luck.

The set was heavy on songs from 2007's Dirty Acres and the recent two-volume Strange Journey series, but also reached back to tunes like "Thugged Out Since Cub Scouts" (from 2001's Will Rap For Food), which mocks gangsta-rap's bravado: "Wiffle ball bat in my holster, rollin' / Super Soaker filled with piss, patrollin'," goes one of Deacon's verses. From these goofy moments to the tense, somber verses of "Mexico" (from Dirty Acres), Kno, Deacon, and Natti swaggered happily back and forth across the stage, making one of hip-hop's finest live shows look just as much like a laid-back onstage party.