For those who don’t know (which is the vast majority of you) Das Racist is a weird band. Spin magazine describes their songs as “seamlessly [weaving] self-aware deconstructions of racial politics into a rapid-fire collage of pop-cultural, historical, and academic references reading both as poetry and comedy.” Basically, they’re a rap group that raps about really smart things in really stupid ways, and somehow sounds smarter afterwards. For instance, the song they rose to internet prominence with, “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell” was originally noticed for its dumb, repetitive lyrics and strange catchiness. However, after the song had sunk into the collective of the internet, many noted how the song was actually an intelligent allegory of American consumerism. One might think to themselves, “How would such a challenging and strange concept show in a live performance?” Turns out Heems, Kool A.D. and hypeman Dap, the guys behind Das Racist, are just smart and talented enough to pull it off.
There were maybe 150 people in the Granada last Saturday in Lawrence to see the show. Things started out innocently enough with local artist Greg Enemy and former Def Jux signee Despot each giving energetic performances. Das Racist took the stage, and after high fiving the front row, kicked into “Who’s That? Broooown!” It became quickly apparent that the group was not into giving a traditional hip-hop concert.
On the microphone, both Heems and Kool A.D. were fine, delivering their lines with a bit more excitement than their oft-monotone recording. They mostly stuck to the lyrics, though they occasionally drifted off mid-verse into random tangents (most memorably, everyone finished out a verse screaming the lyrics in a falsetto). The show was filled with little moments such as that one that, from Kool’s stage dive into two rows of people, to Heems’ rocking air guitar solos in between his verses.
The crowd, small as it was, bought into the act wholesale. They chanted just about every lyric, and were into just about every call-and-response portion. Das Racist fed off of the energy by applying their aforementioned “little moments” to the audience. At one point, they stole the hat of everyone in the front row and to make it up, handed out cigarettes to everyone. It is these unique antics that have defined Das Racist’s two great mixtapes and one good album, and that have made their live show into a bizarrely moving spectacle.
