The love child of Dar and Tupac

Scotland Zeif is the only folk singer to wear a ca$hmoney gold ring (embossed with an "S"), and the only rapper to get props from Dan Bern ("You're a freak, man. I love it!" Bern said, after hearing Zeif perform). He's also only 21, a senior at Hampshire College straight outta New Rochelle, the home of Grand Puba, Brand Nubian, and Black Sheep, of Alan Mencken, E.L. Doctorow, and Ossie Davis.

HYURA CHOI/YH

"I run the gamut," Zeif explained. "I'm a huge Knicks fan and I'm also a huge Golden Girls fan." But the Golden Girls got cancelled, and early in his young career, Zeif realized that folk music was not where it was at. "There's a reason why I didn't stay into folk," he said. "I'm excited by hip-hop. It's very free artistically—unlike folk music, when if you want to say something, you have use metaphors, like `your face is like a flower.' In hip-hop, you say exactly your point, like, `Yo, fuck you. I hate yo ass.'"

But he says this with a smirk—after all, Zeif is the gentlest rapper you could possibly imagine, the kid from the suburbs who comes to the city wide-eyed, but as hungry as any Queens Bridger. Like hip-hop acts Wu-Tang, Tupac, and his idol Big L, he has shrouded himself in myth and created the Scotland Zeif that will perform tonight, Fri., Dec. 1, at the Women's Center. Steve Lester, who occasionaly plays mandolin with Zeif, shed some light on the enigmatic ministrel: "Scotland does not eat any carbohydrates because he thinks he needs to slim down for his inevitable bout with fame—which he is sure will come in a few weeks. He cooks salmon every night. This is all he eats."

Of course, every mythic figure has a legend of some sort, a baby bursting from a head or a man falling into his own reflection; Zeif's revelation came two years ago, while living in New York. It was that equatorial summer of 1999, the mythical time when the U.S. women's soccer team won the World Cup on a Brandy Chastain goal, followed by her tearing off her shirt to reveal a black Nike sports bra. While terror and majesty greased the streets, Zeif was living in a Chinatown apartment with five "hip-hop heads" and no air conditioning. Something had to give.

"I'd play my acoustic guitar," he recounted, "and they'd kick the verses, freestyling over my music." Soon he ventured into open mic nights all over the city, beginning to rap himself, sometimes even freestyling. His journey culminated one night in the outer boroughs, at the Brooklyn Moon Café.

"I was the only white boy there. When I got up on stage everyone laughed," Zeif said. "It was one of these places that have neighbors on the floors above, so the crowd wasn't allowed to clap, they had to snap. I started my chord progression really slowly, and soon I was so good, people had to snap in the middle of the song, at rhymes I didn't even know were that tight. At the end of the song, people were clapping even though they weren't supposed to."

Concert

Scotland Zeif Fri., Dec. 1 at 8 p.m. Women's Center $3

There's something else here besides the hip-hop myth: the hip-hop ego. He's the folk singer with the swagger. "I just go to any place and light up the room," Zeif told me. "I want big things. I'm the international star without the international fame." And performance is the beginning: "I get a lot people interested at shows, but I just don't have a record yet. People are just begging me, saying `I'll give you money, just give me something, anything!'"

He's finally begun recording The Sigourney Seven on his label, Restricted Records, of which he is the CEO. His friend Veteren Katz is the president, running production, while Hampshire freshman Eddy is the intern, acting as both webmaster and body guard. The album's highlights include "West Nile," "I'm Saving Myself for Latrell Sprewell," and "Miss Yo Ass," a dirge of unrequited love. "This is different, next-level music," he said, before clarifying: "I'm not part of any `thing,' I don't have any kind of posse, crew or anything. I'm just Scotland Zeif."

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