D-Sisive Wins Over Crowd at Juno Fest

A pasty dude in glasses and a hoodie rapping Andre3000's epic verse on U.G.K.'s 'International Player's Anthem' sounds like a hip-hop karaoke scenario, and possibly an outright disaster. But long before he busted out other people's rhymes, D-Sisive had already proved that his JunoFest set was definitely not amateur hour.

The nebbishy MC easily won over the crowd at Toronto's Horseshoe Tavern on March 25 with a serious display of technical skill, switching up his flow and putting skepticism about his appearance to rest faster than you can say 'pretty fly for an out-of-shape white guy.'

Backed by fellow melanin-deficient T-dot MC Muneshine and a full band, KC Roberts and the Live Revolution -- who were tighter than the vacuum seal on the door of the space shuttle, and a helluva lot funkier -- D-Sisive ran down feel-bad standouts from his string of recent albums, from cuts off his latest, the freely downloadable 'Jonestown 2: Jimmy Go Bye Bye,' back to 'Brian Wilson' from 2008's 'The Book.'

Even though his lyrical inspiration came mostly from the dark contents of his worried mind and tortured soul, the show was smooth and professional; if you didn't speak English, you could be forgiven for thinking he was a party rapper just kicking rhymes about the good life instead of a man lamenting that he didn't even get "a cigarette pushed into the top of a muffin" on his birthday.

Ultimately, your mileage with D-Sisive's music will vary depending on your tolerance for guys with low self-esteem baring their souls in public. If there's one thing his music inarguably lacks, it's the mystique of similarly self-lacerating poets of despair like Morrissey. But argument isn't very useful when considering D-Sisive's music -- even if you could somehow convince people that he and the fans that join him at the pity party are wrong, what's the use in being right? You've gotta admit: the guy's got heart.




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