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Culture Stage

Jerome Sable & Eli Batalion

Rating: NNNNN


Those Job dudes are back and on a mission. Montreal’s Jerome Sable and Eli Batalion, the brilliant writer/performer/MCs of back-to-back Fringe hits Job: The Hip-Hop Musical and the sequel, Job II, are bringing their encyclopedic hiphop know-how and sharpening their PowerPoint skillz for Hip-Hop 4 Dummeez. So if you don’t know Jay-Z from J.Lo, grab your bling bling and head over to the Tarragon Extra Space, where the now L.A.-based duo are in the house till May 22. See Openings, this page, for details.

You’ve been living in L.A. recently. How have you changed? We’ve become completely disinterested in theatre and fascinated by DVDs instead. In fact, Hip-Hop 4 Dummeez watches like a two-disc DVD set, with special features, outtakes and commentary. Seriously!

Can non-dummeez see the show too? Anyone who knows anything about hiphop is actually not allowed in. It’s a Tarragon Theatre Extra Space policy that we only found out about last week and unfortunately can’t change.

How long does it take you to get into costume? Twice as long as it takes to do our vocal warm-ups, which is one-third as long as it takes to get into character, which is four times as long as it takes to do our sound check, which is one 46th as long as our brand new hiphop album, G Marks The Spot (now available for purchase).

… out of costume? It’s much faster and much more fun to watch, and much more shameless than our self-promotion.

If there were a Parental Advisory label on your show, what would it say? “Straight-edged motherfuckers beware, a’ight?”

Will there be a post-show quiz? a. Yes. b. No, but certain audience members will be selected to party with us backstage after the show. c. All of the above. d. None of the below.

Do you think the new Pope would like the show? Actually, he’s seen the show and hailed it as “one of the most important contributions to Catholicism since Ali G.”

So who killed Tupac? A lot of people focus on the East Coast/West Coast rivalry and completely ignore the more longstanding North Coast/South Coast rivalry between Canadian and Mexican hiphop. The real question is who killed Los Pollos Locos (infamous South Coast hip-hop crew of the 1920s)?

Why aren’t there more women in hiphop? It just wouldn’t work. I mean, c’mon – booty guys?

What’s on your MP3 player right now? Common, Jay-Z, RZA, Method & Red, OutKast, J-Live, the Roots, Blackalicious, Jurasic 5, K-OS and William Hung.

Why should people sit in the front row of your show? They can see all the subtleties of the amazing teaching style of VowelMovement, aka Eli Batalion, in character.

Why shouldn’t they? Much like SeaWorld, the first eight rows are the “Wet Zone.”

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