It was an experiment of sorts. On Monday night, the Twin Cities' most prestigious playhouse and its music booker, Sue McLean, scheduled the first major hip-hop act on the Guthrie Theater's main stage. Which raised the question: What is audience etiquette for a rap show set inside an A-list theater? Do you sit? Do you stand? After all, this is the stage where Ian McKellen performed "King Lear" and Tony Kushner debuted his most recent play.
In Mos Def, McLean found a rapper tailor-made for this special, intimate experience. Aging gracefully at 36, the Brooklynite has been a leader in hip-hop's anti-establishment, but he tours infrequently -- maybe because he's become one of the genre's few acclaimed actors, starring in movies ("Be Kind Rewind") and on Broadway ("Topdog/Underdog").
About 875 people nearly filled the 1,100-seat Wurtele Thrust Stage, which bore the elaborate New Orleans tenement set from the current production of "A Streetcar Named Desire." Coincidentally, the gritty setting of Stella and Stanley's shoddy apartment worked nicely with Mos Def's songbook, which often focuses on social injustice.
Mos Def made the most of the Tennessee Williams set. He burst out the balcony door, dancing his way across the apartment's rooftop to a jazz-funk beat and pausing briefly against the railing as if to say, "This is my stage now." For the next 90 minutes, it surely was.
While Minneapolis rapper Dessa opened with a live band -- wowing the crowd with her tales of love and despair -- Mos Def's backup was a pair of DJs. They set up their turntables right in Stella's kitchen.
Although he's known as one of hip-hop's great lyricists, it was Mos Def's energy that captivated the crowd this night. He spent much of the show skipping across the stage, swiveling his feet like a young Michael Jackson. With a vintage red microphone, he opened with songs from his acclaimed 2009 album, "The Ecstatic." The crowd never left its feet.
His rendition of "Hip-hop," from 1999's "Black on Both Sides," defined the night, as he rhymed its verses in a staccato flow before singing the refrain in his smoldering voice. After closing with "Travellin' Man," he sauntered back up the spiral staircase as the crowd gave him a deserved ovation. Basking in the long goodbye, he gave a last salute and disappeared into the balcony apartment.
If this was indeed an experiment to test big-name hip-hop at the Guthrie -- it worked. More, please.
