Years ago, I was dragged along to see hip-hop outfit True Live at the Evelyn. It was pretty packed, and they were great, but I never would have dreamed that if I were to fast forward to 2011 I would be watching the two main men from True Live on stage in front of an 18-piece orchestra at a full-to-the-brims Forum Theatre.

Alas, on Saturday night that’s exactly what I experienced. In my second excursion to the Melbourne International Jazz Festival this week, I witnessed a performance of epic proportions from The Raah Project. Formed by Ryan Ritchie and Tamil Rogeon in 2004, the Raah Project is a unique infusion of Jazz, classical, hip hop and beats.

The stage was crowded with a string ensemble, horns section, pianist, drummers and the two leading men, who conducted the rest of the flock with ease. The first song of the set was taken away by Blair Harris on cello, shortly followed by the entire strings section producing a huge, haunting sound. Ritchie’s natural charisma as a vocalist was complemented equally by Rogeon’s charisma as a violinist.

Their collaboration is ten-years-old; and this is evident by their seamless partnership on stage. The set included songs from their old record Score, and plenty of other songs to get the crowd excited for their forthcoming album. I certainly got shivers with anticipation to get my hands on that record, whenever it comes out, after hearing the song ‘I need you’ about midway through the show. Undoubtedly a highlight, this song seemed slightly avant-garde and featured rapping, a piano solo and a violin solo during which Rogeon heightened all emotions with a beautiful presentation of harmonic notes. By this stage, I could not hide my awe of this amazing ensemble. Ritchie assured the crowd he wasn’t fishing for compliments when he claimed that he was a ‘terrible jazz musician’. He said, ‘my relationship with jazz music is that I just love it… it’s like the freestyle of hip-hop.’ He went on to prove as such in the first song of the encore.

To confirm his skills as a musician went beyond just reciting memorised notes on a page, he pushed the crowd to yell out words at random. These words included: Illusion, Pokemon, Octagon, Don Giovanni, Gadaffi, Surreptitious and Orange. And, somehow, with the backing of the many talented musicians behind him, Ritchie whipped together a poetic rap that could have been assembled over many hours and still been impressive. Clearly it takes talent to rhyme ‘orange’ with ‘porridge’ and ‘syringe’ and still make it sound lyrical. All credit to this crew of musicians in their ability to produce a show filled with laughter, awe, grooves and, in the case of my friend and me, tears at the beauty of this music.

The orchestra worked together flawlessly, and Rogeon and Ritchie are clearly in love with their art. The emotion in the room was vivid and raw as the Raah Project embarked upon their final track, paying tribute to late American jazz and blues poet Gil Scott-Heron. Ritchie explained Heron’s influence on his perception of information life and soul before the Raah Project left the crowd, myself included, stunned with ‘Nothing Matters’.

This show was quite literally breath taking.