Sometimes I forget how much I love going to concerts at small venues, but then an artist like Mykki Blanco plays at Parkdale’s Wrongbar and it all comes flooding back.

Dubbed “Mykki Blanco’s Party From Hell,” the intimate set was a ton of fun. Blanco, the gender-bending rapper (and artist, poet, and author, just to name a few of her other titles), has been creating a ton of buzz for both her music and image. She performed a bunch of songs from her mixtape, Cosmic Angel: The Illuminati Prince/ss (download it here), even rapping some verses a cappella.

Dressed in a Suicidal Tendencies hat, white t-shirt, cutoff jeans, and lace-up black boots, Blanco (born in California to the name Michael David Quattlebaum, Jr.), worked the stage and the crowd by dancing, jumping, and even grinding up on a speaker. Opening with the fan favourite Haze.Boogie.Life and closing with the ultra-catchy Wavvy (after picking the microphone up off the stage with her teeth), Blanco, now based in New York, demonstrated her incredible ability to surprise and entertain. (Annnnd she totally tapped me on the shoulder because I was in her way and she needed to get on stage, no big deal !!!)

I obviously can’t go without mentioning the night’s headliners, Death Grips, whose high-energy set had people pulling their shirts off and crowd surfing within 30 seconds (actually!) of starting. Barely stopping to breathe let alone give the audience a chance to clap, Death Grips’ unique mash-up of punk and rap had the sold-out crowd going wild.

I passed Mykki Blanco’s DJ, DJ Open1one, on my way out of the bar, and gave him a large, goofy smile that I’m pretty sure creeped him out. Ah, small venues.

~ Sara Harowitz, Photos by Portia Colbert