“I might change my mind day to day,” he says, “but the content of my lyrics, you know, I would vote for them if they were running.”

Barman says he’s hesitant to gauge the impact of his political songs.

“How effective those songs are is totally a question mark,” he says. “Just like how effective it is to march in a rally. It’s more effective than not marching in a rally.”

Not all of Barman’s goals are as lofty as his political ones, but he says he doesn’t buy into the money-equals-success mentality of the commercial rap world.

“My ultimate goal is to make the best songs that I can, and learn and survive,” he says. “Selling records helps those things happen, and being well-known sort of helps that.”

Barman’s down-to-earth attitude was pretty much all he had going for him when he performed at TT the Bear’s Place in Central Square last Thursday.

The guy operating the turntables, who is also his tour manager, seemed to have quite limited knowledge of how to use them, and Barman had to go over to the mixer a few times to turn knobs himself. Songs either ended too soon or started too late, and the set was a choppy mess.

Barman’s charisma saved the concert from disaster. During the show, he launched into tangents about cartoon characters, sketched two female crowd members while performing “I’m Fricking Awesome” and engaged the crowd with constant banter.

Barman’s soft-spoken, conversational style is a striking change from the hype yelling of most emcees. But it still can foster the same sense of community among audience members.

During an improvised blues interlude at his Middle East show last December, he invited the crowd to throw out topics.

When one of the drunken members of the opening act yelled out “I hate Italians,” Barman hung his head and said, “Can I please get a little love in here?”

The crowd was with him.