Zachary Boyd Smith submitted a dope article, which got replaced by generic garbage.  Here is the uncensored article in full form:

In what has got to be the complete antithesis of Michael Israel’s live
art touring stage show that visited the Scottish Rite Auditorium a
little over a year ago, the performers and visual artists of Ratlab: An
Experiment In Live Art are a troupe least likely to appeal to a mass
audience. This is a compliment. Whereas Israel’s show consisted of
flinging fistfuls of paint at an oversized canvas to the tune of Jock
Jams Vol. 2 to produce, admittedly, impressive images the likes of Jimi
Hendrix and Muhammad Ali, the Ratlab participants take their art with a
side of outcast. The mixture of graffiti artists, a rapper, a
cartoonist, a spoken word practitioner, and a foul-mouthed one-man band
is a little more volatile and dangerous than painting a portrait of Ali
to “Pump Up The Jams.”

       Ratlab: An Experiment In Live Art
is a mixed media production bringing together some of the area’s finest
“on the outskirts” artists, both audible and visual, to create art live
on stage and for a good cause. The pairings of graffiti artist Mike
Shifflett and rapper Sankofa, artist Josh Angel and one-man band
Poopdeflex, and cartoonist Matt McClure and tale spinner John Commorato
Jr. will each have a one hour set to intertwine their various artistic
outputs. The social experiment will be taking place in the Tiger Room
at Calhoun Street Soups, Salads, & Spirits from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.
on Saturday, April 4. All attendees will be granted free admission to
the Brass Rail for the after party and a performance by Chicago’s Mike
Maimone & The Mutts with locals The Orange Opera and Definitely
Gary. The event will cost only $2 to attend with proceeds from the door
and from a silent auction of donated art, gear from RISE skate shop,
and the pieces created by the visual artists that night going to the
Boys & Girls Club of Fort Wayne. 

       Ratlab curator,
and registered beard owner, Josef Zimmerman, the man all at once behind
the scenes and the face of the project, explains the choice of
charitable contribution thusly, “I just try to keep everything local
and I want to try and support as many things as I can within the
community. When it comes to community-wide organizations, it was one of
the first one’s that popped into my head. A lot of people I know rely
on the Boy & Girls for help for their children and everything I’d
heard has always been positive.”
       
       Zimmerman,
along with silent partner and staff photographer Daniel “Dongo”
Dienelt, carefully handpicked the performers from the immediate area.
“I found the artists and then asked them who they wanted to work with.
I didn’t want to go all milk and orange juice on it and pair up someone
with their polar opposite,” he says of the eventual pairings. “There
were people from out of town that were interested in the project. I
don’t ever condemn anybody for moving away to go do anything, but it’s
like, ‘Oh, I’m moving to New York because that’s where the scene is.’
Well, great for jumping on that bandwagon, but with a city that’s so
malleable like Fort Wayne you can start something if you want to. Don’t
go where somebody has already started something because you’ll be swept
up there,” he admits.

       “And working as a waiter,” adds Sankofa, soberly.

 
     Of the performers, Sankofa is probably the most high profile. “I
rap. I‘ve rapped for a long time, long enough that I’m too old to rap.
But I still do it anyway,” he says of his origins. The one-time Whatzup
Battle of the Bands runner-up has been busy with his series of free
recording projects as of late, only set back by a crashed hard drive
that erased months of work.  “I have fun with music and I give it away
for free because it’s cheap and it beats pressing CDs.” Though, Sankofa
is not used to the generous set time allotted him for Ratlab. “I’m
performing for an hour, which will be my record longest set.”

 
     Paired with Sankofa is graffiti artist and aerosol wizard, Mike
Shifflett. Graffiti can be a polarizing art form, but Shifflett knows
the “rules.” “I was taught early on where was acceptable to work and
where wasn’t, like Zesto’s,” he says of the unfortunate tagging he sees
all over town. “My work is considered graffiti art, but I like to
incorporate realism into the graffiti art, which pretty much a European
thing. It doesn’t go along with a lot of traditional hip-hop artists
who like to keep it New York based or strictly bombing, illegal style,
which I don’t mind. I have other elements I like to include into the
graffiti.” Be assured, the room will be well ventilated for Shifflett’s
set. “I have something planned, but it will probably change,” he says
of his hour on stage.

       A seemingly ever-present force of
art in Fort Wayne, John Commorato Jr. will be performing one, two,
maybe three spoken word pieces for Ratlab. He isn’t quite sure. “I’ll
maybe perform a second or third piece, depending,” he says. Right now
he is focused on his main piece entitled, Barry Bender: Adventures In
Doppleganging. He says of Bender, “It’s a low calorie narrative, not
much filler.” Commorato is really happy to be involved with a project
like this, ““I’m looking forward to working with Josef and Dongo on a
mixed media project like this. I’ve got a great relationship with Dongo
and I always wanted to work with Josef.”

       Partnering with
Commorato’s spoken word will be cartoonist/illustrator Matt McClure.
Though his style uses a lot of hard lines, he doesn’t wan to be
pigeonholed as just a cartoonist. “My work is, for lack of a better
term, cartoony,” he says, “Its cartoony with a narrative based in
alternative dark realism with a lot of whimsy. I try to incorporate a
lot of different things into the medium of illustration.” McClure seems
to be the most excited member of Ratlab, “I was curious to see who
Josef would bring together. I think all of us feel as, somewhat,
outsiders in this community of fine artists.” Of the event itself he
adds, ““I spent a lot of time in college at this coffee shop just
riffing these comic journals. This almost improv style is going to be
fun to go back and do it just on the spot.”

       “Only with everybody watching,” adds Zimmerman, as a friendly warning.

 
     The other elusive pairing of one-man dirty bluesman Scott
“Poopdeflex” Snyder  (out on tour with Left Lane Cruiser at the time of
this writing) and artist extraordinaire Josh Angel might be the most
intriguing grouping of the event. If memory serves correctly, Snyder
has never had to play a set longer than a half an hour and his
cantankerous Poopdeflex alter-ego might find that hour set time as a
chance to chide everyone in the room, like Don Rickles if Don Rickles
were Dick Van Dyke’s character from Mary Poppins. There’s no telling
what his stage partner might cook up, Angel is probably the most
rounded artist of the lot. Will he do a live tattoo session? Paint an
amazing portrait of an audience member? Will he also work with aerosol
like Shifflett? When reached for comment, Angel simply says, “I’m Josh
Angel. I do art.” It will probably be a little more complicated than
that.

       An event this diverse and benefiting the community
would be a terrible thing to miss out on. Pushing the boundaries of
what a “show” can be is an experiment, an art project, in itself, so
attendees should feel as though they are a part of something bigger
than just an audience. Ringleader Zimmerman concludes, “I’m trying to
do something different, trying to bring people that might know
Sankofa’s work, but not Mike’s or Josh’s, out to experience different
things. I don’t know if it’ll mix well. Who’s going to show, who’s not
going to show, but I think it’ll be very fun.”