the hum / By Bob Doran

Most Definitely

Mos Def, plus Halloween happenings, The Waybacks and Cherryholmes

(Oct. 29, 2009)  There was a time when hip hop was rebel music, a blast from the inner-city alternating between party soundtrack and protest against injustice. As hip hop caught hold it merged with mainstream pop and for the most part, lost its edge.

From the beginning, socially conscious artists like KRS-One were working underground pumping out rebel rhymes. At the forefront in the ’90s were rappers like Common, the Solesides/Quannum crew out of Oakland, Jurassic 5 from L.A. and Black Star, a duo comprised of Talib Kweli and Mos Def.

Mos would go on produce solo albums and craft a parallel career in acting ,including work in films like Michel Gondry’s Be Kind Rewind and in the Chess Records pic Cadillac Records, where he played Chuck Berry.

Earlier this year he released his fourth studio disc, The Ecstatic, simultaneously a return to hip hop roots fueled by crate-digger samples and an expansion into new territory with nods to Afrobeat, and reggae. The record begins with a long quote from Malcolm X boldly declaring, “You’re living at a time of extremism, a time of revolution, a time when there’s got to be a change …”

Who’s going to bring that change? Maybe Mos. As he puts it in the final cut, “Casa Bey”: “I have the skill, power, passion. Raise your red lantern stanzas and anthems based on expansion, a vantage point of the past, present and after rapture.”

Mos Def is coming to Eureka on Thursday, Oct. 29, for a show at Nocturnum. S.F-based MC Whosane has been along for the ride through the recent Ecstatic tour; he’ll be there. Local support comes from Myka 9 and J the Sarge, aka Magic Heart Genies, and Nocturnum’s resident VJ/DJ, Itchie Fingaz.

Halloween has always been a big night for nightclubs, with every bar in town trying to lure in costumed customers with fake spiderwebs and other “scary” decorations. With All Hallows Eve falling on a Saturday this year, the whole weekend gets the treatment: Friday is now dubbed Halloween Eve, as if it’s possible to have an eve of an eve.

Thus we have ExoSkeleton: The Drum ’n’ Bass Masquerade Ball on Friday at The Red Fox Tavern. The bass-heavy raveup features Babel and Grasshoppa, both from Murda in America Drum ’n’ Bass Collective, plus DJ Touch from Deep Groove, Edgie, MC Mr. Zach Funk and mind-expanding visuals by VJ Rhett Bice.

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