Review: Poppy Minnesota rapper Yung Gravy is all fluff at fair grandstand

Between all the cartoon video backdrops, the catchy nursery-rhyme-flavored songs and the free Lunchables snack packs doled out to the crowd, unaware attendees might have mistaken Wednesday's performance by Yung Gravy as the kids-music entry in the Minnesota State Fair grandstand lineup.

Mr. Gravy actually served as the token hip-hop concert in this year's fair, though — continuing a long tradition of the genre's most vanilla acts of the day appearing at the grandstand.

He also stood in as one of two headliners actually raised in Minnesota (alongside members of the Hold Steady, performing Saturday).

That he's a Minnesotan — reared in Rochester as Matthew Hauri — is not one of the first things most people know about the 27-year-old rapper.

Instead, they usually know him as the guy who made out with a woman twice his age on the red carpet at last year's MTV Video Music Awards. Or they know about his friendship with a woman almost three times his age, Martha Stewart. Or they know he got sued by British pop singer Rick Astley for sampling his 1987 mega-hit "Never Gonna Give You Up" as the basis for his own hit, "Betty (Get Money)."

Gravy certainly made his Minnesota roots known during Wednesday's concert. He donned a Timberwolves jersey, shouted out Rochester and rapped along to Minneapolis hip-hop vets Atmosphere's love song to the state, "Say Shh."

"The only reason I spend more time in L.A. is because my producers are there," he said before his Minnesota-made tune "1 Thot 2 Thot Red Thot Blue Thot."

The ultimate home-sweet-home moment came when Gravy brought out his mom, Cynthia, to dance on stage and throw Fruit Loops onto the 9,474 attendees during "Betty (Get Money)," the show's closing song. Never mind that was just a minute or two after he talked about how well-endowed women in Minnesota are, showing off some of the many bras thrown at him on stage from a crowd.

An unabashedly atonal, stoner-sounding rapper whose flat delivery is allegedly part of his charm, Gravy made his mark releasing jokey novelty songs like his set's opener, "Oops!!!" He really did not do much in Wednesday's performance to be taken more seriously.

Aside from an earlier appearance with opening rapper bbno$ ("baby no money"), he performed for only 50 minutes. He talked more than he rapped, too. And he spent way too much time setting up would-be big moments in his songs as if he were the comedian Gallagher bringing out watermelons.

Before "Dancing in the Rain," for instance, he and his ever-stylish turntablist, DJ Tiiiiiiiiiip — a Twin Cities hip-hop vet from the early-2010s group Audio Perm — spent about two minutes handing out bottled water. Then another minute was spent instructing fans to take only a sip and save the rest to throw in the air once the song started. It created a fun burst of energy and liquid, sure, but the tune didn't last as long as the set-up. Several other songs in the set were cut short, too, making more time for banter.

Enough music was performed, though, to easily pick up on Gravy's overused formula. Throughout the set, he sampled oldies songs straight off a Time Life box-set TV commercial and rapped his own catchy bars over them, just like the Astley hook in "Betty."

His third song, "Mr. Clean," lifted from "Mr. Sandman" by the Chordettes. Song #4, "Cheryl," used the 1977 yacht-rock staple "Baby Come Back." Nearer to the end, "Gravy Train" relied heavily on Maxine Nightingale's 1975 hit "Right Back Where We Started From."

In those cases, someone walking by the grandstand may have also mistaken the show for the KOOL-108 oldies night at the grandstand.