breed love world tour.
precious & i saw mos def and talib kweli (blackstar) perform live at the roxy. thanks to a charitable friend, we were able to be nearly 10 feet away from the front row, dead center. i love the energy of hip-hop shows, the smell of weed, the way people undulate in waves.
kweli came out with much more energy than i would have ever expected. his performance is gritty filled with arm waves & beads of sweat. his stage adornment was simple--a long white T, a black hoodie, a backwards yankees fitted, and a mic. before long, the black hoodie gave way to a sweat-stained t-shirt with a wife-beater underneath. he performed crowd favorites including "get by" and "black girl pain."
mos def, on the other hand, has a much lower key performance. at time, it borders on lethargic. mos def is a self-indulgent perfomer. he takes it time, does it right but the reality is, the audience would be happiest with a simple, high energy performance. rather than rhyming he prefers to sing--with a reverb mic--much in the way that he does on the new danger. i love the singing, but it works better in the four walls of my dorm room, not a live stage.
if you ask me, the new danger is lyrically sound and artistically beyond much of what mos def has done before. for that reason, it does not resonate well with an audience that prefers the beat to the lyrics.
the audience was expectedly about 60% white. problem is, both mos and kweli speak exclusively to a black audience--that is, not in their lyrics but in the comments directed to the audience. they ask people to raise fists in the air, spread love to our people, etc. so, my question: are white audiences alienated by live performances in particular? if so, how does that change the dynamic between audience and artist?
kweli came out with much more energy than i would have ever expected. his performance is gritty filled with arm waves & beads of sweat. his stage adornment was simple--a long white T, a black hoodie, a backwards yankees fitted, and a mic. before long, the black hoodie gave way to a sweat-stained t-shirt with a wife-beater underneath. he performed crowd favorites including "get by" and "black girl pain."
mos def, on the other hand, has a much lower key performance. at time, it borders on lethargic. mos def is a self-indulgent perfomer. he takes it time, does it right but the reality is, the audience would be happiest with a simple, high energy performance. rather than rhyming he prefers to sing--with a reverb mic--much in the way that he does on the new danger. i love the singing, but it works better in the four walls of my dorm room, not a live stage.
if you ask me, the new danger is lyrically sound and artistically beyond much of what mos def has done before. for that reason, it does not resonate well with an audience that prefers the beat to the lyrics.
the audience was expectedly about 60% white. problem is, both mos and kweli speak exclusively to a black audience--that is, not in their lyrics but in the comments directed to the audience. they ask people to raise fists in the air, spread love to our people, etc. so, my question: are white audiences alienated by live performances in particular? if so, how does that change the dynamic between audience and artist?
posted by Shawna at 10:33 AM
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