If you’re planning to go see Dave Chappelle’s Block Party, get to the Scarborough Coliseum and secure yourself a seat in the centre of the bass-pounding auditorium. Given the crowd that frequents that east Toronto theatre, the screening might prove to be a rather raucous affair.
Not that the movie won’t delight at a different venue-it’s just that you might feel more at ease jumping out of your seat and waving your arm in the air (not to mention maybe throwing back lyrics at the screen) amongst the other hip-hop enthusiasts that will inevitably crowd the Coliseum. In fact, Block Party might be the only film where the rather, uh, vocal audiences of the Scarborough multiplexes will be appreciated.
The movie captures a free outdoor concert hosted by comedian Dave Chappelle of Comedy Central fame-documented by director Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), the massive hip-hop extravaganza was situated in the depths of Brooklyn (to where the infancy of hip-hop can be traced). Chappelle set up shop on a street corner among the crumbling complexes of the Bedstuy projects, where the dearly departed Biggie Smalls (a.k.a. Christopher Wallace) attended daycare (a sweet part of the film involves Chapelle touring the centre and visiting with the kids).
Overnight, the venue erupts into a sea of electrified fans grooving as one to the beats of the hip-hop elite. Featuring performances from socially conscious spitfire MCs such as Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Dead Prez, Common, and The Roots (who act as the house band during the joyous day-long affair), this documentary takes audience engagement to a brand-new level.
Whether you are hanging off every word of Dead Prez as they deliver an a cappella verse of their anthem “Hip Hop,” or bouncing to the rhythms of the Mos Def and Kweli ode “Definition,” you are never released from the trance that uproots you from the theatre and sets you right amidst the combustible crowd at Bedstuy.
Even ears not accustomed to hip-hop are welcome to partake in this exuberant and communal event, as Chappelle uses his sketch comedy intermissions to translate the music, the neighbourhoods, and the influence in neophyte terms. Chappelle’s guided tours of the Brooklyn projects uncover communities hindered by strife, yet ready to blissfully unite under one melodic chorus.
The concert unleashes an arsenal of artists whose music is all the more relevant now, given that rap has collapsed into a more commercial form since its nascent grassroots origins. The current glamourized “gangsta” façades and obsession with “bling” have eclipsed the old values of the art, and led to an oppression of true artistic ingenuity. In his song, “Africa Dream,” Kweli described rappers locked up by this capitalist state of mind as “slaves on a ship talkin’ about who got the flyest chain.” Imagine that.
Through its focus on significant rappers and the gritty Brooklyn neighbourhoods that inspire them, Block Party matures into a celebration of a musical genre that has since been robbed of much of its integrity, and in the process presents a culture that is once again given the opportunity to unite.
By the end of the film, which wraps up nicely with a long-awaited onstage reunion-if you don’t already know who it is, I won’t spoil the surprise-the audience is overcome by a sense of nostalgic melancholy. Chappelle may unwittingly have been responsible for one of the last great moments of hip-hop, one where we are given the chance to re-live the rebellious energy of the music’s heyday through a dying breed of artists that have not (yet?) sold out.
