Hasaan Mackey never stays in one place long. Since Mackey's mom died 13 years ago, a life of shuffling between relatives' and friends' homes has saddled the 24-year-old with an unsettled feeling.

Just like his life, his music demands constant adaptation. Mackey's freestyle rap, in which he improvises rhymes to changing hip-hop beats, is so polished it usually sounds rehearsed. Chuck "Wagun" Cerankosky, a local DJ whose label Full Circle Records plans to release a single by Mackey in January, says the rapper wins every freestyle contest he enters. Mackey's deep voice belies his slight build, and the verses he often fires with a machine-gun cadence contradict his quiet disposition. At the open-mic freestyle he hosts at Java's (16 Gibbs Street, 232-4820), Mackey usually sports a black Timberland coat and a long, Mingus-like goatee that personify his fusion of hip-hop and jazz.

The Rochester native's rhymes range from funny to ferocious, but his inspiration stays constant. Pain motivates him. And he says he sometimes cries on the mic. Before he turned 13, Mackey lost his family. His older sister was murdered when he was six, a tragedy that Mackey says contributed to his mom's alcoholism. Two years after his mom died from sclerosis of the liver, Mackey's father, a diabetic, died of heart failure.

This loss, as well as Mackey's experiences growing up in the city's tough neighborhoods, will always fuel his material, he says, even if musical aspirations take him beyond Rochester. Cerankosky recalls a time when Mackey used his hometown advantage to outdo nationally known rapper Common in a freestyle battle. After the Common asked for challengers from the audience during a concert earlier this year, Mackey traded rhymes in front of more than 1,000 people. The crowd exploded when Mackey delivered the line, "I know this concert is at RIT, but this is for my people at MCC."

2003-12-11