We left Montreal at 4AM on the morning of Saturday May 30th to make the drive to New York City for the reunion of hip hop’s genuine super-duo, Mos Def and Talib Kweli aka Black Star. They played an early and a late show at the Nokia Theatre in Time Square, and we had tix for the late show. Although the showtime on the ticket was 11:30PM, it would not be called the “late show” if it wasn’t late. That meant standing in line outside the spot until 12:30AM, and then sitting through the warm up routine until 2AM. I’m not gonna lie. I fell asleep during Black Violin and the DJ and hypeman business that was up there killin time. Then came Blaqstarr and his DJ from Baltimore, who promptly launched into perhaps the worst set I have witnessed at a hip hop show ever! This dude and his sangin’/rappin routine was not wasted on the ravenous NYC crowd, who quickly ate him up and booed him off the stage. It was merciless. Then, in a futile attempt to salvage a truly awkward and embarrassing moment, his DJ tried to bribe the hostile audience with – you guessed it – some Baltimore club music. Damn!! He got booed off too, faster than you can say Stringer Bell.
When Black Star finally took the stage, accompanied by the one and only J. Rocc, they simply destroyed it. Power trio for reals! But you don’t have to take my word for it. Thanks to itsallthewaylive.net you can check out the entire second set split into 30 tracks right here. I wish you all could have been there. Enjoy!
THE INCUBATOR 
thanks to Charb for digging this up. we were looking everywhere for the Mos Def/Dilla track “History” and couldn’t find anything, but it’s here right along side all the other classic joints. POOT!
Dope! Thanks for posting this Scott.
Black Star “changed my life”…. The way they delivered “Astronomy”
live, was amazing. I wish I could of been there…
I can see it clearly!!! What a reunion! Lucky you!
Thanks for the post