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Pop Profile: Katastrophe |
by Josh Tager
Katastrophe (a.k.a. Rocco Kayiatos), is one smart, agile hip-hop artist. A 24-year-old San Franciscan, he turns heads on stage and the street with his assertive strut and urban-generic (but still striking) style: baseball caps, wife beaters, tattoos, chains, baggy jeans and scruff.He's taking on the powers that be in mainstream hip-hop and gay culture alike. This female-to-male performer's music is grabbing serious attention, with contemporary beats, quick rhymes and belly-busting humor that unsparingly pulls apart conventional notions of manhood and what it means to be "normal." Starting in 1997, Katastrophe dazzled San Francisco audiences with his tight, confrontational poetry. The following year, he won the Youth Slam award, catching the attention of the producers of Poetic License, the acclaimed documentary profiling bright young poets. On a roll, Katastrophe hooked up with like-minded performers. Sister Spit, a renowned traveling talent show of women and dykes, took him along on one of their tours. He also took a spin with Strombolli's Island of Donkeys and Dolls, a performance cabaret that brilliantly combines the art of clowning with hip-hop, earning him a solid national following. Coming by a copy of Katastrophe's music can be difficult (he records and self-distributes his own work), but it's worth the trouble. His words fly like baseballs into the glass egos of homophobes and self-doubting men. It's worth it to catch Katastrophe live just to watch any stray insecure guys squirming over "Enough Man," a song about penis size, talking like a man and winning the girl. The fast-rhyming "Written in Flames" is Katastrophe's full-frontal assault on the clown prince of masculinity, Eminem. "Eminem
Who pretends to comprehend
The gravity of his majesty
Magically jumping from one side to the next
He'll hate you for the kind of sex you're having
Rap about stabbing fags in body bags
No respect for women
And the rest are swimmin'
With women in expensive condominiums
Ain't sayin' shit 'cept what outfit they're wearin'
What's this shit preparing us for
I bust for the nine-to-five hustlers
Trying to rustle up enough bucks
To tuck some under their pillows." He's defiant. He's rowdy. He's even sweet, when he wants to be. And he'll rhyme circles around any rapper stuck on a message of hate. Keep an eye out for Katastrophe's soon-to-be-released "Let's F*ck, Then Talk About My Problems," the LP that will secure his status as a bona fide player on the hip-hop scene.
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