The Hamilton-based seven-piece consisted of a horn section, guitar, bass, drums and DJ along side emcee Tarek Ajak, as well as various band members also took turns rapping. Mother Tareka and the Greezy Steez was another notable opening act, and the last to go on before Bey, which unfortunately seemed to make some in the crowd more impatient. As the audience’s energy began to dwindle he definitely brought it back with his high-energy performance. Stand outs from the list of openers were definitely Hezekiah, foremost a producer, who flew in from Philadelphia the same day on Bey’s request. Listed opening acts included Harvey Dentist, Lemony Fresh, ONEoak, MadeWade, the In Tha Kut Showcase, The Mad Poets, Spinoza and Shamans, however there were other people introduced to the stage, such as Brando, a DJ and emcee combination, Robbie G, who did a lot of fast rapping and a song about Canada, Hezekiah, and Mother Tareka and the Greezy Steez. It didn’t help that towards the end, those on stage kept repeating that he would be out in just a few minutes, and then he wouldn’t appear. At first the crowd was receptive, but as time went on, they began chanting for Bey to appear and some even went as far as to boo the later acts on stage, just out of impatience more than anything else. That’s not to say the opening acts were bad, there were just far too many of them to hold the audience’s attention. Hosted by Toronto hip hop vet, Mindbender, a good-sized crowd occupied the Phoenix Concert Theatre on Thursday night. Unfortunately, this excitement was hard to maintain throughout the show’s eight opening acts, who drained the audience as local rappers played almost non-stop from 8pm to 12:30am, with Bey going on a half hour late, at 12:50am.
If you are going to go see a Yasiin Bey (aka Mos Def) show on his current tour, don’t be surprised to find out that it probably won’t be anything you were expecting. (Photo: Lauren Garbutt/Aesthetic Magazine Toronto)
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