Yasiin Bey, the rapper formerly known as Mos Def, can be a truly electric live performer if you catch him on the right night. It's just that every night is not the right night. A few months ago, Bey and Talib Kweli announced a tour of the UK and Europe, intended to celebrate the 30th anniversary of their beloved duo Black Star. The tour kicked off at London's O2 Academy Brixton on Tuesday night, and it sounds like things did not go well.
According to Reddit accounts, last night's Black Star performance started off at 10:20, and the venue had an 11PM curfew. Talib Kweli was reportedly onstage for a while before Yasiin Bey arrived, apparently after almost missing the show because of delayed flight out of Boston. A Redditor says that Bey didn't apologize, and then he got angry when fans booed.
In a video posted on Reddit, you can hear Bey saying, "What the fuck you so mad about? Is that some sign of approval?... There are no prisoners here. There's no refund policy. The doors work both ways. Whoever don't like to be here -- I mean, you know, we giving it our best shot. If you having a good time, raise your hands to the sky. If you not having a good time, you have other options."
According to Setlist.fm, the show ended after 11 songs. Presumably near the end of the show, Bey told the crowd that the group had "delivered" and told them to "just be grateful."
It's obviously not a great idea to advise a hostile crowd to be "grateful," but let's lay the blame at this one where it belongs: At the feet of Donald Trump and all the pieces of shit who held American air travel hostage during the government shutdown.
UPDATE: Talib Kweli wrote in and took issue with this Stereogum post. He didn't like that I based much of this post on a Reddit account of the set, so I asked him for his account of what happened at the show. Here's his statement on the London show, printed in full at his request:
Regarding London, first I would like to address the issues I had with your reporting. In this social media age, it's very easy to get caught supporting misinformation if you're getting it from social media, but I expect more from you as a journalist and from Stereogum as a site that covers our culture. I would expect a journalist to find a more credible source than random anonymous Reddit posters before posting a story, not after. I do not think that is too much to ask for.
Your article says I was onstage for a half hour playing records before Yasiin showed up. That wasn't me. That was our DJ, Big Von from KMEL. He looks nothing like me. You took the word of a Reddit poster who doesn't even know what the members of Black Star look like. Even worse, that Reddit poster who was your source was corrected and added an edit to their post, saying it wasn't me.
You wrote "a Redditor says Yasiin didn't apologize." That's a lie. Not only did Yasiin apologize for being late as soon as we hit the stage, he also thanked the crowd for their patience and expressed his gratitude for them being fans. He didn't do this once, he did this several times thru the night.
Yasiin's flight was from Barcelona not Boston, which doesn't actually matter except for the fact that it's another example of you trusting what some random Redditor posts instead of ascertaining the facts.
While Yasiin did address the boos, as he should, not once did he display a shred of anger. Quite the opposite. He wasn't angry at all. In my opinion, he was very gracious considering how disrespectful the booing was.
This was a show that started about an hour late due to travel delays. This kind of thing happens in the touring world, it's not some sort of intentional offense. We love performing. We are not out here trying to "not" perform.
The show was scheduled to start at 9, we hit at 1015 and finished at around 1110PM. We did 55 minutes of the hour we were contracted for and we finished 10 minutes after curfew. That's not egregious in any way, shape or form. People out here acting like Yasiin shot someone. It's an overreaction. We are human beings, not jukeboxes. Shit happens, it's very hard to travel country to country to perform and always be on time for every show. If this work we do was easy, everyone would do it. They don't because it's not easy, it's very hard.
With that said, as a fan of shows, I appreciate and understand why some in the audience would be frustrated, especially working class people who spent money on tickets, had to arrange baby sitters, who had to catch the tube before too late, who had to leave because they need to be up for work the next day. This is not an optimal experience for anyone involved, not for me, not for Yasiin, not for the fans. But we do the best we can with what we have, and that's all we can do. The reality is, you don't pay for a guaranteed good time when you go to a show. You pay for the attempt. In my view, we stuck that landing. We did almost an hour, we brought out local legend Black Twang, we brought out Common, and once we hit stage, we put our entire being into that show.
A journalist should only operate on facts, not presumption. Presumption is the opposite of journalism. Yet in still, your article contains a sentence that reads "Presumably near the end of the show, Bey told the crowd that the group had "delivered" and told them to just be grateful."
This sentence confused me. It's your job to report not to "presume." Did Yasiin say we delivered? Yes. I agree. We did deliver. Did he say "just be grateful?" No. He didn't tell anyone to "just" do anything. Your presumption is incorrect.
Black Star should be grateful to the fans, and we are, which is why both Yasiin and I said as much, more than once, on that stage. This relationship works both ways, though. The fans should be grateful to us, and true fans are. This is not a controversial thing to say.
As much as I dislike Trump, and I do appreciate your attempt to give Yasiin a bit of benefit of doubt at the end of your article, this situation had nothing to do with him or the shutdown.
Thank you for responding, thank you for your time and I only asked that if you edit my words it only be for clarity, not to save space.
