We knew Dave Chappelle's run of Radio City Music Hall dates featuring an unprecedented line-up of musical guests this coming week (The Roots play Tuesday!) was in some ways a Block Party reunion (the landmark event/film marks it's 10-year anniversary at the end of the summer). But in case there was any doubt, Chappelle marked the last of his solo shows (no musical guests) with the arguably ultimate surprise musical guest, Kanye West. Kanye, you may recall, peformed a legendary rendition of "Jesus Walks" at the original Block Party, just a few months after his debut LP College Dropout, was, um, dropped. Thereby fucking up the program--and here I'm going to get a little salty--of all the diligent music and culture journalists who put all their chips on attending the historic opening night (and I do mean all the chips, because as Forbes has officially documented, this 9-date run at Radio City is the most expensive comedy tour of 2014). Fortunately Okayafrica's own Kam Tambini was in the audience friday night and here is his firsthand description of the surprise appearance:
"As Dave finished his last joke and the crowd applauded, the beat to "New Slaves" came on — an odd choice for a night that had the DJ strictly sticking to old-school classics. Dave walked off and handed the mic to a smaller figure in black leather pants--who turned out to be Yeezus himself.
Kanye ran through "New Slaves" as the whole place stood up off their seats, before going through more firmly-cemented material like "Jesus Walks." Three quarters of a way through his last song, "Gold Digger," 'Ye jumped off the stage into the main aisle and proceeded to rap/walk his way out of the building."
Now that I'm done being swole, I am ready to rejoice--although there is no great footage of Kanye's cameo thus far, somebody at Complex was lucky enough to catch a fragment "New Slaves" on illegal cameraphone video (watch below). More importantly, this elevates the Block Party-reunion theme from subliminal to symbolic and firmly cements my belief that day nine of this 9-day run is going to feature a Fugees reunion and cameos from D'angelo, Jay Electronica and Tupac hologram. (No, don't talk crazy talk. Pac's not alive. I know because he has a Broadway musical).
