I’m willing to bet this slice of history was left out of your textbooks: The Underground Railroad didn’t only run north. It also ran south across the aqueous border of the Rio Grande into emancipated Mexico, where thousands of escaped and formerly enslaved people sought refuge.
That story is resurrected in “Mexodus,” Brian Quijada and Nygel D. Robinson’s hip-hop musical that is part historical fiction, part jam session and full of curiosity and the creative use of technology.
In this electrifying theatrical experience, at Audible’s Minetta Lane Theater, Quijada and Robinson rely on music made from loops, starting with plucks on the stand-up bass, strums on acoustic guitar and a run on piano keys. They then layer those with beatboxing, buttery vocals and even an accordion. All of those sounds are repeated over and over, crafting an entire sonic universe from scratch. Instrument by instrument, they build the ark of a song and ride the waves — a dazzling showcase not just for what music can be, but also for the ecstasy of making it.
The pair, who have performed “Mexodus” at Baltimore Center Stage, Mosaic Theater Company of Washington, D.C., and Berkeley Repertory Theater, take on many roles: M.C.s working in the call-and-response tradition of hip-hop (and hip-hop theater); griots addressing the audience with memory-soaked monologues; disrupters lobbying for Black and Latino liberation; and eventually Carlos and Henry, fictional men from opposite sides of the Mexico-United States border who end up needing one another to survive.
Carlos, a former medic in the Mexican-American War who shamefully abandoned his battalion, inexpertly toils on a farm. Henry is an enslaved Texan on the run after slaying his master. Carlos saves Henry’s life after spotting the injured runaway wading in the Rio Grande. Their bond, begrudgingly forged by necessity but then sustained by friendship, stretches the show’s narrative into something more personal. It’s a wise artistic device, grounding all of Quijada and Robinson’s archival research into a buddy tragicomedy.
As guides through this history lesson, Quijada and Robinson are charming, musically dexterous and rap at the speed of light. (They would undoubtedly medal in the linguistic Olympics.) They also sing like sirens and expertly play the overflow of instruments scattered across Riw Rakkulchon’s quasi-barn set that also resembles a shipping container, a rickety trove of concealed treasures. (Rakkulchon has essentially erected a life-size hidden object game where guitars, washboards and percussion blend into the walls.) The instrument-toggling and tongue-twisting work that goes into building the show is its own sort of never-ending loop, a metaphorical spiral stacked on top of the musical one. In one gorgeously staged scene, in which Henry offers to help Carlos dig a trench, the two pick up guitars, not shovels, and strum while miming the plow.
Even with the show’s freestyle feel, the director David Mendizábal runs “Mexodus” as smoothly as a cypher. It must be a beast to perform, but Quijada and Robinson never appear to lose control — even when tempos kick up mid-flow. Nevermind the architect and sound designer of the looping systems, Mikhail Fiksel, who is outright showing off even if he’s never seen onstage, flexing technical mastery for 90 minutes straight.
Together, these men have created something truly dynamic: a world where fire-spitting rap cozies up next to balledic bolero; English and Spanish weave freely; and cross-cultural solidarity is not simply ideal, it’s essential — a truth oft interrupted by the fallout of colonialism, colorism and other distracting forces. Quijada and Robinson become the physical embodiment of the unity they preach. And though “Mexodus” is likely to be produced and recorded for Audible’s streaming app, this hip-hop homily must be experienced live.
Mexodus
Through Oct. 18 at Audible’s Minetta Lane Theater, Manhattan; mexodusmusical.com. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes.
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