A typical week in the life of P.O.S. might look something like this: Sell out First Avenue as a rapper (with or without Doomtree, the crew he's a part of), make some slow-jam pop songs with supergroup Gayngs, and then play a secret show with the experimental, bombastic Marijuana Deathsquads. Whew.

In the busy Twin Cities music scene, P.O.S. (real name: Stef Alexander) is a singular talent. His ability to effectively move between different music genres and scenes with ease makes him one of the most influential, and indispensable, local figures of the past five years.

His breakthrough Rhymesayers album, "Audition," was released in 2006, the same year as Vita.mn's debut. We've been lucky to have had a front-row seat to his transformative rise to stardom. And he's only getting bigger. Doomtree will release its second album, "No Kings" (Nov. 22), and then perform a week of shows at First Ave (Dec. 4-10). After that, look for the rapper's long-awaited fourth solo album to drop in early 2012.

On a fall afternoon, Alexander sat down at Muddy Waters in Uptown to talk about his growth and that of the Twin Cities music scene. He was in the mood to try something different -- a pureed sour-root soup. Sounds about right.

Q: What was your mindset back in 2006?

A: I've always been about moving forward. The first car I ever wanted was a van, because I knew when I was older I would have to get on the road.

Q: You were opening for Atmosphere back then. Did [frontman] Slug give you any good rap-star advice?

A: Yeah, don't be afraid to suck. Back then, if somebody in the audience wasn't feeling me I would get hung up on it.

Q: You work in so many different music genres. Was that a conscious decision?

A: Rapping is the way I pay for my life. [Hip-hop] is also the most fun to make because I can do it by myself or with friends. But I don't know if I'd only be interested in making music for money. So if I wasn't actively seeking out other projects, I'd just stop making music. The way I do it now, playing in Deathsquads inspires the beats I make, which makes rapping more exciting for me.

Q: Is your time with Deathsquads or Gayngs a vacation from hip-hop?

A: There's no vacation really needed. All of it together makes for a happy me. I take a really long time between rap records because I really don't like bad rap music. And I think I'm capable of making terrible rap music. I really have to like what I'm saying on a rap song in order to put it out. With other music I don't necessary think the same way. I can put out little pop songs about whatever because they're pop songs. Or rock songs because it's more about melody. With rap, it's about the words.

Q: Have you made any big purchases with all that rap money?

A: No. Finances are the same as ever. I might as well be working at Kinko's. I bought a car because my mom forced me to. I had really shitty credit and I kept on buying $1,500 cars off Craigslist and driving them until they broke. I finally caved and bought myself a Honda Accord. But it has a big smash in the bumper so I feel OK about it.

Q: How has the local hip-hop scene changed over the years?

A: It's huge [now]. But it's been big since I was in junior high. And I feel like there are kids in junior high right now who are rapping their asses off and looking at me like "Fuck that dude, I can rap better than him." Or they're saying, "That's dude's dope, I want to play a show with him."

Q: And the larger music scene?

A: One of the cool things that's happening right now is there's less bands and more projects. There's all these great musicians and they're picking and choosing the people they want to work with. And maybe that's a band. Or maybe it's just a project.

Q: How did that come to be?

A: The Gayngs record had a lot to do with it. [Gayngs ringleader] Ryan [Olson] got everybody out of their element to work on some random weird adult-contemporary record. Those were musicians who hadn't really spent any time together, and all of a sudden we're working on an album and appreciating each other's skills. Just in the last five years, people are learning how to collaborate and work together.

Q: Is it like that elsewhere?

A: There's nothing like this anywhere else. There's a lot of really great cities for music. But there's nothing like Minneapolis.

Q: What's your favorite venue?

A: First Ave. It's the place I dreamed about playing as a kid.

Q: What was it like getting a star on the side of the building?

A: I'm not going to reflect on how cool any of this stuff is until it's all over.

Q: Why not?

A: 'Cause I haven't stopped working. I feel like Doomtree having a star is cooler and Rhymesayers having a star is cooler. I get to rap for a living. That is fucking incredible. In high school, my guidance counselor asked me, "What are you going to do with your life?" I said: "I'm doing it." When I'm 65 I'll sit back and reflect on how cool it's been.

Q: Are you afraid it might not all work out?

A: That's exactly why. It's been three years since I put out a rap record. But it's not like I've just been sitting around saying, "Ah shit, everything is so lovely, I'm such a huge rapper." I've been working on the record, I'm playing with Deathsquads, I'm collaborating, I'm making beats. And I'm finding time to be a good dad.

Q: You've done a few secret shows this year, one under an overpass. Are you bored with traditional gigs?

A: I'm bored with rules, man. It has zero to do with playing normal shows. I just think it's cool to take over a space that isn't being used and use it to make people feel free and alive. People forget that none of these rules are necessarily real, and I know that sounds like some space-cadet shit. But I've been trying to live on some real "No Kings" shit. I don't want to be ruled. Everybody spends all of their time trying to make money, whether that makes them happy or not. I would much rather live comfortably in a fucking shed than work all day every day and drive a Lexus and have a huge house. Unless I loved what I was doing. I'm going to go out on a limb and say most people don't love what they're doing. But I know it's really difficult to find a way out of that.

Q: Would your secret shows work without Twitter?

A: Yeah, but they wouldn't be the same. Twitter is quick. The fact that we have Twitter (@YEAHRIGHTPOS) means I can decide to have a show tonight [and people will come]. I get my news from Twitter. I follow the news agencies and people I trust.

Q: Do you still want to rap about politics?

A: I still want to write about my politics, but it's less and less about what the president is doing. Politically, everyone is polarized. It's the extreme right fighting the extreme left. It's on par with watching football. Up there at the top, it's never going to change. But down below where real people live, we can do what we want with our own minds. Get inspired by the community you live in.

Q: You turned 30 this summer. And your son Jacob is 12, almost a teenager. Does he still dig your music?

A: He's never really been an uber-fan. When he was really young, he'd walk up to people all the time and say, "My dad is P.O.S." But we got that out of his system before starting junior high.

Q: Junior high. Isn't that when ...

A: ... you think your parents are lame?

Q: Yeah. Is that going to happen?

A: It already did. He comes home from school and goes straight to his room. He just says, "Hey, Dad." That's cool. I've always looked forward to my 30s since I was a little kid. You're gonna grow up, you're going to get older. I've never understood the vibe of acting like turning 30 was some tragedy. I noticed when I was younger that people who are older tend to know what the fuck is going on. I'm just hoping I know what the fuck is going on one of these days.

P.O.S.

• Real name: Stef Alexander.
• Solo artist: Three albums for Rhymesayers Enter-tainment, including "Audition" (2006) and "Never Better" (2009).
• Collaborations: Charter member of Doomtree (hip-hop); has also played with Building Better Bombs (punk), Gayngs (indie soft-rock) and Marijuana Deathsquads (experimental rock).

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