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	DEF JUX 3 HOMECOMING

Touring in support of the latest installation of the Def Jux Presents CD series, the Def Jux 3 tour made its final stop in front of a near-capacity crowd at the Middle East Saturday night. That helped answer the question of the evening: can a Def Jux tour that doesn’t feature the label’s leader and its biggest seller, El P and Aesop Rock respectively, sell like a Jux show? The Definitive Jux label is built around the Cult of El P, a loyal fan base that makes a room feel more like a Star Trek convention than a hip-hop show, and with more mohawks than fades usually in attendance, the Jux movement can appear more punk than rap.

But Saturday at the Middle East was different, thanks to headliners and local supergroup the Perceptionists (Mr. Lif, Akrobatik and DJ Fakts One), who recently signed a Def Jux album deal. Their 90-minute set opened with a freestyle over a live beat supplied by surprise collaborator Shock G, a/k/a Humpty Hump of Digital Underground, who also backed opener Murs on keyboards and turntables. Lif and Akrobatik traded clever four-bar barbs that sparked a frenzy with the crowd, and they maintained that intensity for the duration of the set. They glided through material from both MCs’ solo catalogues as well as unreleased Perceptionists tracks, dealing with topics ranging from politics ("Home of the Brave") to the New England Patriots ("Razor") to racial self-hate ("Remind My Soul"). They traded lines and finished each other’s rhymes while Fakts One glued it all together on the wheels. And yes, it’s tricky to create a political rhyme that makes the crowd throw their hands in the air, but Lif and Akro made that look easy on "WMD" as they got everybody chanting, "Where are the weapons of mass destruction?/We been looking for months and we ain’t got nothing/Please Mr. President, tell us something/We knew it all along that your ass was bluffing."

After playing 35 shows in 40 days, the acts all looked exhausted backstage, but as opener 4th Pyramid told me, "These fans keep us alive." And the crowd gave equal love to up-and-comer Pyramid, West Coast legend Murs, and the insanely energetic Sa Smash. It was the quickest four hours of hip-hop I’ve experienced. It also showed that Definitive Jux is more than El P and Aesop Rock, and that as a Boston hip-hop act, the Perceptionists may be able to hit it big and break the Curse of the Benzino.