DAS RACIST at Wrongbar on Friday, January 28. Rating: NN
Das Racist’s irreverent deconstructionist take on hip-hop has inspired a cottage industry of online music criticism, but what makes for interesting blog fodder evidently does not make for a good concert. Given their ironic mugging and bizarre drugged-out demeanour, the temptation is to put quotation marks around the set. But even if it was all intended as anti-rap performance art, it still wasn’t worth the cost of admission.
When a group’s appeal is their lyrics, it’s nice to be able to hear them. The MCs were noticeably annoyed by sound problems, but that hardly excuses their half-slurred, half-shouted delivery. They seemed more interested in between-song banter, stopping tracks midway through to cram in more sarcastic zingers. Rather than finishing with the ubiquitous Combination Pizza Hut And Taco Bell, they ended by smugly vamping over Tina Turner’s Simply The Best.
After such a shambolic set, the question isn’t whether Das Racist are joking but whether they’re laughing with us or at us.
