“Welcome to what you want and what you need, what you got” rapped Kyle Sutton, Scott Tarazevits, and Mason Granger in front of a crowd of ten in the Union Ballroom a little past 7, last night.

To get a feel for the crowd, Sutton did some icebreakers such asking where people were from. Sutton asked the crowd if they had seen the car being broken into outside the union.

“Do you think it was a hate crime?” Sutton asked.

J.C. Miller, political science major and UB chair, responded with it being finals frustration.

Sutton, Tarazevits and Granger have performed together for last five years after meeting at Rutgers University in New Jersey. Sutton told the audience members that the group got their influence from movie called “Slam” and musical influences, such as hip-hop.

Each member of the trio brought their own style to the show as they interacted not only with one another, but also with the crowd.

Sutton with his hip-hop style and dance brought a theatrical feel. The audience empathized with Sutton’s poem about living in an apartment infested with coach roaches; It is horrid. His segment led to Tarazevits’ unusual performance about chicken.

Tarazevits with his rap, like Weird Al Yankovic, harmonized about chicken.

“KFC stands for kill for chicken,” Tarazevits said.

During Tarazevits poem, Granger started clucking like a chicken.

Granger then switched to imitating people complaining about his dietary habits.

“Do you know how many calories are in those cheddar fries?” Granger asked in a high whinny voice. While Granger rapped and sang as he interacted with the audience, by going after Miller’s foot.

Through out the performance, the group changed tones, accents, rhythm and moves. From serious bits about Corretta Scott King to comical bits about technology, the poets evoked laughter from the audience. Sutton talked about racial harmony while he was growing up. He had people asked him, “What are you?”

His response, “full-blooded hybrid.”

Tarazevits – who is white – rapped about the lack of racial harmony and people asking him if he could rhyme.

“In iambic pentameter,” was Tarazevits response.

Granger talked about technology intimacy when he met a girl at a party who would not talked over the phone, but only through text message.

“Telephone call is too intimate,” Granger joked.

This led into a beat about companies and icons on the Internet like Myspace, Friendstar, AIM and Apple, and how it’s possible to have a relationship and never meet them.

This is Sutton’s love life.

“You’ve never met face to face?” Tarazevits asked Sutton about a girl he met online who wouldn’t respond back to him.

In the end the girl was really Tarazevits.

Sutton, Tarazevits and Granger came together again to perform “one word poem” in which each person spoke one word.

“This,” Sutton said.

“is,” Tarazevits said.

“a,” Granger said.

“one word poem,” group said together.

Carrie Hollis/The Daily Eastern News Scott Taraevitz watches Mason Granger, both members of The Mayhem Poets, scream about world hunger during their performance in the University Ballroom Wednesday evening.

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