Hopkins junior Kidwell storms local music scene as mix master Cex

Rjyan Kidwell, a junior in the Arts and Sciences Department, grabs the mic in the sweaty, intimate room and screams, "What's my name?"

It doesn't matter where the room is, be it Osaka, Iowa, or Baltimore's own Ottobar - the answer is always the same: a loud, unanimous "C-E-X!"

As a self-proclaimed "No. 1 Entertainer," Cex is parading his way to music stardom atop milk crates in dingy basements and venues all over. Whether standing on a crate just above eye- level, or rushing though an audience with live mic in hand as he rhymes about insects or riding bikes through Waverly, Cex is always interacting with, responding to and ultimately provoking his audience's critical faculties. You can't avoid him. He wants to earn your respect.

Now Cex's live performance is joined by another recorded work under the Tigerbeat6 label that he and cohort kid606 founded. Although both the CD and the live show grow out of the same impulse, they sound entirely different. Oops - I Did It Again is the full length sequel, following many smaller releases and compilations, to Cex's breakthrough Role Model. While Role Model emerged as a response to a "difficult and horrendous" high school experience, Oops finds the music entertainer back creating music on his laptop (combined with some laid-back, emo-style guitar work) midway through undergraduate life and still fresh from a summer tour of America and Japan.

"I think it's probably one of the better electronic music albums that I own," professed Kidwell about his new album, which he anticipates will sell at least 2,500 copies, hopefully more. "In a way everything I have to say about electronic music is on that CD, and pretty much I feel like I don't have a lot to say about it anymore."

In a league of genre-bending talents still cautiously lumped together in the Intelligent Dance Music (IDM) category, what is it that makes Cex stand out from the rest of the pack?

For Kidwell, it's a combination of his willingness to both "be real" and play often to live audiences while other similar artists stay at home on their computers. Kidwell's notorious penchant for nudity and the three gold upper teeth that spell his stage name are only part of his roguish onstage persona.

"Confidence, I think, is the only thing that matters in art performance," said Kidwell. "If you know what you're doing is good, then other people will take your word for it."

But how does this fit in with his recent recorded work? While Oops is still predominately a collection of non-vocal tracks, Kidwell has already recorded over half of the songs for an upcoming album that will be entirely hip-hop vocals.

For Kidwell, who claims to care more about Jay-Z than Autechre, pop music is something to embrace, not deride. On Oops he intentionally takes cues from Ginuwine on some of his mid-song skits. On Eminem, Kidwell declares, "he pours his ignorant little heart out and it's beautiful."

"I think I consciously strive to make music that people can understand and that the most people can understand," said Kidwell. "It's obvious that the music I make isn't formulated with focus groups and based on data. I'm making the music I want to make."

"It's not clearly defined what musicians deserve," he adds, claiming that artists need to earn their respect, especially through live performance.

"The main reason I did the tour this summer was because I could, and also to give a big middle finger to other artists and producers that are sort of doing the same thing, that are making the same type of music, that don't do it. I feel that too many groups don't tour.

"In high school, I understood very quickly that being a musician is not a way of getting the respect of your peers and the authorities."

Kidwell's Maryland high school may not have appreciated his antics, but Johns Hopkins seems to be offering some grudging respect. Under the guidance of Peabody/Hopkins professor John Spitzer, Kidwell recently received a Provost Award to go out and record the sounds of Baltimore with a portable DAT player. Cex is poised to do musically for Baltimore what fellow electronic act Matmos, currently on tour with Bj?rk, did for surgery. In the end, these collected sounds may find their way onto his next album.

For Kidwell, a Baltimore County native, the project makes perfect sense. "Baltimore has an inordinate amount of people that make something happen," said Kidwell. "In Baltimore, more than any place else I've been, there are people who get creative when they're bored."

Cex, of course, is a prime example of Kidwell's own maxim.

Cex's next Baltimore show is Nov. 5, at the Ottobar. Check out http://www.ryjan.com for all Cex-related information ever known to man, from report cards to IFP stories.