Mos Def is one of hip hop’s most memorable protagonists. He has a unique style: he’s equally confident singing and rapping and has a strong political compass as well as a great ear for melody.
It turns out he’s not bad at acting either, as we saw in ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy’ and ‘Be Kind Rewind’. Having been reincarnated as Yasiin Bey last year, Mos Def took to the stage exuding poise and radiating feelings of elation onto everyone lucky enough to witness the show.
Starting with the unexpected choice of ‘Lord Lord Lord’, a forgotten Kanye West collaboration, Yasiin powered through all of his tracks tonight without hesitation. He didn’t even give himself a spare five minutes to preach politics. After all, he didn’t need to preach politics – the visuals behind him did the work for him, showing everything from old Mardi Gras carnival footage, political protests, references to slavery in New Orleans and even people cooking sausage stews. Somehow, they seemed to work perfectly with Yasiin’s multifarious renditions.
Something went off in the room when Yasiin started performing his Madlib produced tracks. As soon as you heard the strings of ‘Auditorium’ creep in, you smelt your first joint of the night.
The glorious sitar clatter of ‘The Embassy’ and the DJ Premier-produced ‘Mathematics’ elicited a huge roar of glee from an exuberant crowd. Yasiin went through moments of scatting, freestyling and boogiing to a number of his favourite songs – most notably ‘Alter Ego’, by psychedelic rock band, Tame Impala. It was wonderful to experience Yasiin’s diverse range of musical influences first hand.
One of the great things about the show is that the crowd barely dictated the song choice. Despite doing his own thing, rather than tailoring his performance to the crowd’s needs, Yasiin Bey was no less popular for it. In fact, it was a pleasant surprise for all. Yasiin, looking a reassured as ever, went through a number of different tracks off all of his solo albums, showing off his adroit musical skills.
Yaasin finished by playing ‘Take ‘Yo Praise’ by Camille Yarborough – the song Fatboy Slim famously sampled to make his monster hit, ‘Praise You’. Given the Brighton connection, this seemed to be a tactical choice. However, the set was brought to a close in a slightly ill-advised fashion – it wasn’t really clear that he had actually finished his set until the DJ’s backing track finally stopped.
Playing for only an hour, there were a number of tracks Yasiin could have performed to please the old fans (there was an absence of ‘Ms. Fat Booty’ and Black Star material). Despite the show’s shortcomings, it worked well overall, far removed as it was from your conventional hip hop concert.
Concorde2, Monday 28th October 2013
Words by Jack Dutton
Photos by Mike Tudor @ Studio85UK
