All the musicians on stage at Rock the Garden last weekend seemed thrilled to be there, but none looked happier than Stef Alexander did offstage.
The Minneapolis rapper and sonic innovator better known as P.O.S. was spotted all over the festival both days. Simply there to hang out, he seemed happy to talk to anyone happy to see him. Which was pretty much everyone. In one particularly broad-smiled run-in Sunday, he had his angel-faced, devilish-grinned 2-year-old son, Lincoln, riding atop his shoulders.
"I couldn't even pick him up until about a month ago," Alexander said.
It was only 3½ months ago that Alexander endured what he called "the most horribly invasive, ridiculously painful surgery you can imagine," a kidney transplant he had waited almost two years to receive. The doctors had to go in through his abdomen, he said, "So just healing up from them having to cut into me has been a big part of it."
After more than a week at Hennepin County Medical Center, one month at home on bed rest and two more months of gradually active recovery — plus sometimes-daily doctor visits — Alexander, 32, believes he's finally able to do what he does best (besides maybe serving as his son's chariot).
"I love working," he said. "I love doing what I do and getting stuff done. And not being able to do that has really been frustrating."
He returns to the stage with his Doomtree crew Saturday at Bayfront Festival Park in Duluth on a now-annual hip-hop-meets-hippie-folk bill with Trampled by Turtles, an intrastate jaunt that also includes a warm-up gig Friday in Moorhead, Minn. He already delivered what he called a "tester" performance with Doomtree two weekends ago at the Green Line grand opening party in St. Paul, and he said it went well.
"As long as I'm doing it with Doomtree and have the gaps when the others are out front, then I think I'll be fine," he said. However, he added, "The P.O.S. shows are probably going to have to wait."
