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The multi-hyphenate performer makes music with a message.

Monday Aug 20, 2007.     By Rosalind Cummings-Yeates

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When you're a singing, rhyming, dancing, DJing sensation like Malakh, it's a little difficult to commit to a single style.

During his weekly performances at Mix Bar, Malakh might serve up a riveting poem, a moody jazz standard or some hot rhymes, all with equal finesse. What matters to the lanky 25-year-old is not the particular genre but the presentation. "I'm an artist," he says simply. "I come from a point of self-mastery." When asked to describe his sound, he sums it up as "alive."

Alive, indeed. Energy flows from this dynamic performer as freely as martinis at a yuppie bar. Laid-back, yet intensely verbal, Malakh captures his audience with his cool delivery and old-school star quality. Although he has been performing professionally since 2001, he began to write poetry at age eight and began singing, rapping and dancing in his teens. "It clicked that I wanted to be an entertainer in high school," he says. "I was a dancer, I choreographed for college troops, I was entering talent shows."

Everything really started connecting, however, when he was at Lincoln’s Challenge in Rantoul, Il. "It was a boot-camp GED program," Malakh explains. "It was 1999, and I was in a six-month program. I had a lot of time to think. I started branching off and experimenting. I started writing songs." Soon enough, he garnered a regular slot at a local cafe, and found himself in need of a stage name. His first attempt, DJ "J" (inspired by his given name of Julius James), was "redundant," he says, so he started searching for something more original. "I came across a kabalistic encyclopedia and I saw the name Malakh, which means messenger. I thought, as a poet, I am a messenger, and I became DJ Malakh."

While he originally wrote poems for his various crushes, Malakh has developed into a socially conscious MC who commands a crowd with his stories. "I never force myself to write a piece, I just let it come. I get the opening line and everything falls into place," he says. One of his most popular pieces, "Humble Hypocrite," grew from this process. "The overall piece is about verbal suicide. It's about going against your own nature and not being who you really are. We think we gotta change people and manipulate them instead of letting them grow."

The poem follows a poet who struggles with his identity: "First things first / please don't compliment my spoken verse / I got enough problems and compliments only makes things worse / you promoters don’t like to pay / like artists don't need work / I tried to work a 9-5 to satisfy my hunger / my heart and stomach is empty / believing women only love numbers."

Malakh bases his poems on observations and personal experiences, not news coverage. "I like to write about timeless issues," he says. "There’s a difference between memorizing a script you wrote and really feeling it. I draw from real emotions."

He also draws from a wealth of diverse influences that inform his style. He lists Minnie Riperton, Common, Nina Simone, Sade, Kurt Elling, Busta Rhymes, James Brown, Portishead, John Coltrane, Wu Music Group and Prince as major influences. "I'm a jazz type of guy," he says of his musical preference. "That's my niche and my affinity."

Despite his myriad of talents and influences, Malakh insists there's only one thing he wants an audience to get from his performance. "It's important to me that everybody that listens to me has their purpose redefined, strengthened or expanded," he says. "If they don't get entertained or energized, at the very least, they got to the height of their purpose."

Coming soon to a stage near you: Malakh performs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. at Mix Bar.