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YASIIN BEY
@ PICA, Melbourne
9th June, 2024
(Live Review)

Review by Sam Coronado

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As he took the stage for an anniversary show for the 2009 album The Ecstatic, I couldn’t help but think in that moment of the reputation he has gained as both an artist and performer: enigmatic. Yasiin Bey, the MC, actor and personality FKA Mos Def, who cut his teeth as part of the acclaimed duo Black Star with fellow New York rapper Talib Kweli way back when, had come out to Melbourne for the first time in over a decade. That last Australian tour in 2014 was marred by cancellations, and recent shows too have been subject to criticisms regarding Bey’s performance and his conviction. And while rappers have often been fickle artists for promoters to work with, Bey has earnt himself few brownie points.

So then, as he walked out onto the stage in the industrial warehouse venue that is PICA, preparing to play a show for Rising, it was a sort of nervous anticipation for me. I rated his work with Kweli as the duo Black Star, and while admittedly I am less familiar with Bey’s solo work as Mos Def after his classic debut Black on Both Sides (1999), this didn’t hold back my cautious excitement.

The things I knew to expect were Bey’s trademark conscious and cerebral lyricism, tight flows, but above all an eclectic selection of beats that pulled its samples out of left field. I knew Madlib was among the contributors on production for this record, and that the album had been compared to the beatmakers collaboration with the late MF DOOM’s Madvillainy in both its scope and range of influences.

Funnily enough, that album, a distinguished underground classic in its own right, is being featured in part on some of Bey’s recent setlists, as he performs the material of the late MC who he was a noted admirer of, in several tribute shows. The reception of these shows has been positive-to-mixed, with the line between faithful homage and uninterested routine being blurred occasionally for some. At least, along with that reputation of his, this is how I understood and rationalised my apprehension.

It took Bey very little time to ease whatever those concerns were. In front of a simple background graphic, armed only with a mic, and accompanied only by a DJ, Bey took victory lap after victory lap in what proved to be a joyous celebration of the MC’s last full-length release. The beats, whether marked by Madlib’s fingerprints or those of Oh No, Madlib’s brother, or the late J Dilla, or in fact, every collaborator on the project; every beat sounded just as fresh, and just as hard at the ripe old age of fifteen years. The sonic influences here are seemingly endless: the hand-clapping percussive ‘Quiet Dog Bite Hard’ is a far cry from the Middle Eastern, psych-ey rock of ‘Supermagic’, and yet both work so, so well.

Just hearing some of these beats live and in person, standing amongst a crowd of fellow hip-hop and rap listeners and fans rocking back and forth, would probably be enough to write a mostly positive review here. But Bey was passionate, deliberate and rock-solid in his delivery and performance on top of all of this all night. And if this is a live show, and the beats are bound to be as good as the production was on the day the album dropped, then I guess my criteria should really be focused more on Bey himself. Can the man still spit? For sure. But that he does so with all of the conviction, and purpose that he had on those classic albums of the 90s, all these years later is what is worthy of credit.

Even his singing on his hooks, an intermittently throughout the verses, has held up too. The South Asian, almost Bollywood influenced ‘Auditorium’ showed this better than anywhere else. Hearing “you know, they know what it is!” ring all throughout PICA was a highlight, as was hearing everyone in the crowd join in with Bey. But he wouldn’t have anyone out-do him with the singing here, nor with his presence, nor his eccentric personality.

That eccentricity was on full-show during the brief interludes where Bey would break off into some meandering ramble. On another night, I wonder if he would tell us about what things would be like if he were president. Here, he decided to tell us about his idea for a ‘spy-thriller’ TV show called ‘The Embassy’. Yes, as in the track, ‘The Embassy’, which this little digression followed an excellent rendition of.

While the eccentricity was certainly in full measure throughout the night, and occasionally it may have had those in the crowd near me eagerly waiting for him to stop yapping and drop the next track, some were funny and rewarding enough that we couldn’t help but laugh. He told us a story about being dragged out of his hotel to meet none other than Prince, some days after Michael Jackson had died. It was a tale of twists, highs and lows, culminating in him seeing the “motorcycle from motherf****** Purple Rain”, but Bey was his most charismatic self throughout. This charisma would bleed into even those politically charged and personal raps littered throughout the record, and it made it hard to forget who the man behind it all really was. There was just something about that old-school flow of his, coupled with his distinct flavour and attitude, that was just so magnetic.

There was nothing to hide behind, no autotune, no backing tracks to lip-sync to, no live band to accompany him. The lighting and stage design were minimal and put the focus right on Bey and the legacy of this final full-length release of his. I wondered if we were lucky to witness him in rare form, if we had caught him in a joyful mood of celebration. A celebratory anniversary show of an album with its own mystique within his discography, notably absent from streaming services and hard to track down as a result. I wondered if we were fortunate to catch Bey as he got to nostalgically reminisce on stage about his most celebrated solo work outside of his classic debut. But by the time the closer, which fittingly concludes the album as well, triumphantly echoed throughout PICA’s warehouse space, I stopped all wondering and felt it best to just rock along to those timeless grooves, and timeless bars. Here was The Ecstatic, fifteen years old now and still basking in all of its, and Bey’s glorious legacy.

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AMNPLIFY – DB