FEATURE eye magazine MINDBENDER - Mental Reverse/Spiritual Rebirth Reported by: LIZZ MENDEZ BERRY (February, 1999) The art of language Supreme Being Unit ignite the next-level spliff SUPREME BEING UNIT with Isolated Showers, Nextraterrestrials, Flow Continuum, DJs Zeal, Transformer, more. Friday, Feb. 12. Comfort Zone, 480 Spadina Ave. Language is a seductive art. Glimmers of soul shine through wicked word scrambles. Hip-hop is essentially electrified poetry, and it can get raw like sushi. Because many MCs see openness as vulnerability, they assume a robotic player stance. To intentionally exclude oneself from the Hilfiger masquerade is to choose outsider status. "No gambling in the store," says the sign in the slightly dubious shop where I am drinking tea with the Supreme Being Unit's Adhimu, a.k.a. Mindbender. He's one of the local MCs who are taking risks, gambling with the art form. Like Canadian MCs the Sebutones, Swollen Members and Collapsyllables, he eschews diamond-studded fronts for complexity in lyricism, in the hope that people will open their minds and connect. Toronto-born Mindbender and his twin brother, Conspiracy, have been rhyming for almost 10 years, both together and separately. Mindbender coined the name Supreme Being Unit, but he doesn't intend the term to be limited to himself and his partner in rhyme. "The concept is that me and my brother are a conduit for as much powerful music as we can make. The listeners are a part of the unit too." SBU's second album, Mental Reverse, Spiritual Rebirth, out now on Ottawa's Astral Majesty Creations, is a ferocious lyrical double header. Each MC has his own concept side -- Mindbender explores paranoia, porn and power structures on Mental Reverse, while Conspiracy eulogizes roaches and talks regeneration and space travel on Spiritual Rebirth. Both "ignite the psyche" with soul food for thought. Says Mindbender, "We are trying to make entertaining and thought-provoking lyricism that has social awareness and still a melody behind it -- music that steps outside the boundaries of what you hear in everyday songs." While wordplay is clearly the pair's focus, the production on the record is strong blunted soul that handles the lyrical weight. In a highly commercialized hip-hop climate, SBU's dense lyrical lacerations stand out. Co-conspirator Kotep reckons that the time is ripe for change in hip-hop. "The fan base for next-level shit is growing. The industry is playing people for fools and they're starting to realize that, and starting to look for alternatives." Mindbender hopes that SBU will become a "successful weird band." He's aware that polished pearls of wisdom and vibrant vocabulary do not a hit single make, but the new disc has enough sweet beats to draw quite a few unsuspecting listeners into its freaky fray. Rave reviews from underground enthusiasts around North America show that the sound revolution is beginning. Conspiracy has recently moved to Vancouver, while Mindbender works out of Toronto. Tomorrow's CD release party at the Comfort Zone is happening in spite of the fact that the group is on hiatus due to geographical limitations; Mindbender is mixing his wordology with the rhythms of various local collaborators. He's also working on a solo project. As he explains, "I want to interact with as many musical forms as I've been touched by." He sees his lyrical style as progressing further into storytelling: "I want to ride the fine line between being able to speak to everybody and still making every line potently complex." Kotep and Mindbender have a project called Hypothalamus Expandus, in which they rhyme over local criminal funkster Transformer's jungle beats. They eschew the puritan insularity that exists within musical genres, working their word power on different levels. Mindbender elaborates: "I think a hip-hop head who doesn't accept other types of music doesn't know what hip-hop is. Hip-hop is other music. The DJ just took old records from other musical forms and did shit with them." Adds Kotep, "It's all beat-oriented electronic music. Jungle is the next evolutionary step, which is just freaking everything. Most hip-hop producers in Toronto are on some really basic shit, so the next logical step is to get musical backing that can accommodate us and also just fuck people up. It's good to screw with people's categorizations." The CD release party will feature Mindbender as well as a diverse crew of beat miners from the intellectual underground. Among them will be Ottawa hip-hop crews Isolated Showers and the Nextraterrestrials, Kotep and other hip-hop and jungle MCs, as well as Transformer and a number of hip-hop, jungle, dub and reggae DJs. These traders in the universal currency of rhythm are your guides to the other side.