The Mighty Mos Def at the 9:30 Club

Concert reviews are not something I envisioned for this blog, but this one is worth it, and maybe it'll become a regular fixture.

Last night my roommate, Chris, and I traveled to northwest Washington, D.C. in order to attend a Mos Def concert at the 9:30 Club.

The opening act was a hip hop artist out of Philadelphia named Hezekiah. He was pretty good and didn't make us wait too long for him to finish. Unfortunately, after Hezekiah finished his short set, we had to wait upwards of 90 minutes for Mos Def to arrive, due to his flight being delayed. When the rather lame 9:30 Club MC announced this, I was skeptical. However, Mos Def later called attention to his boarding pass which he had left in his pocket, and all (or most) was forgiven. Needless to say, after approximately three hours of standing, we were all ready to rock.

First, let me say that if you haven't heard much or any Mos Def before, you're missing out. Mos Def is a rare breed of performer. A rapper, an actor, and a poet, Mos Def is part of the "socially conscious hip hop" movement. I don't know how he feels about this term, but I feel that it makes it seem too exceptional, although it does draw attention to how far mainstream rap has fallen.

Mos Def's set was, for lack of a less pretentious word, sublime. The fun he has doing what he loves is infectious. His live lyrical style alternates between goofy and profound; reverent and irreverent. After his first or second song, Mos Def turned to his DJ and asked him to find some Chuck Brown, showing the D.C. crowd that he knew his Go-go as well. Several songs later, the funk-inspired strains of the proto-Go-go* song "Bustin' Loose" came through the speakers as MD riffed over it. Later, during a transition into a new song, Mos Def revisited this style while sampling "Get Out Of My Life, Woman" as performed by Joe Williams followed by "I Got a Woman" by Ray Charles. For the very last song, off his upcoming album The Ecstatic, MD showed off his musical talent by starting his lyrics right on the first beat, a rare occurrence in rap and hip hop.

*This sounds like an indie album title.

In the end, Mos Def made it clear that he was very grateful for our patience and he seemed genuinely sorry that the show had to be shorter than expected due to the late start. I had been standing, at this point, for about five hours, my back and ankles were screaming at me, and I needed to pee pretty badly, but when I was standing there, a mere twenty feet from this genius of hip hop, I probably could have put up with it for another hour at least. Definitely a good night.