An old-school, red microphone in hand, rose petals scattered across the stage, dressed all in black (“I’m like two feet away from being Amish”), Yasiin Bey a.k.a. Mos Def took a stab at standup comedy Tuesday night at the Phi Centre in Montreal. Bey had already made news hanging out in Montreal, but now he was there to make jokes. Some of which were pretty funny.
Performing a standup show called “Happy Birthday! Shut Up” and accompanied by Kaytranda on the turntables, Bey started the show by playing some drums before joking that “I love hip-hop, (but) rap is like if Donald Trump were black.” Bey later admitted that “my dream had been to do standup comedy,” then acknowledging his position on stage (sitting on a stool) added, “and I’m sitting down.” He continued, “don’t I look like I’m living my dream? I’m here living my dream and I look like Tyler on the cover of that album.”
During his set Bey hit on a variety of topics.
On Kanye West’s performance at the Pan-Am Games:
“You had Kanye out at the Pan-Am games sweating and going hard as one of the athletes. He threw that mic in the air so hard it never came down. I was talking to El-P from Run the Jewels the other day and he said it turned into a bird.”
The Drake/Meek Mill beefopocalypse:
“The male ego is a boring place.”
Nicki Minaj’s role in the whole Drake/Meek beef:
“She’s a better rapper than both of them dudes.”
And the wonderful city of Montreal:
“The people, the food, the culture, the horsesh*t… mmm, earthy!”
Bey also joked about Wiz Khalifa and Catelyn Jenner dating, the cartoonishly delightful names of Canadian currency, and a running arc revolving around a fictitious Acme company.
You can check out more from the show below:
(Via Pitchfork)
