block party
I saw Dave Chapelle”s Block Party last night with the roomies, Raag and Jesse. Good times!
Quick summary: Dave Chapelle gets signed to a $50 million contract, decides to blow some of it. He throws a block party in the Bed-Stuy neighborhood of Brooklyn and invites a bunch of people from his current hometown in south west Ohio. (NOTE ANDY: he grew up in Silver Spring for part of his time!) He also found some decent hip-hop acts to come and preform (the Roots, Kanye, Mos Def, the Fugees, etc)
And also! he invited a marching band, once again proving that marching bands are cool.
It happens that Michel Gondry directs, but that doesn’t have much bearing on the situation. Dave Chapelle’s funny as it turns out. The music is pretty fantastic. I loved a lot of the performances. I’m not the most familiar with either mainstream or underground hip hop and I imagine most of you are more familiar so you might enjoy the music even more than I do.
I loved the scene of Kanye watching the marching band play his “Jesus Walks” with a huge smile on his face.
There are also little stories of people through out. The old woman from Ohio. The two kids from Ohio that are out of their mind that they get to go. The very very strange couple that lives in the most-abandoned house right where the block party is going to be held. The marching band director and members. The neighborhood pre-school director.
In the end I sort of wish I could have seen more of all of it: the humor, the music and the people stories.
It’s good and surprisingly uplifting. I vote yes.