Monday, February 20, 2006

Dave Chappelle's Block Party


Party over here

I had promised to review "Running Scared" today, but am really not feeling very well. As a public service to the people, here's a preview of something much more exciting coming Friday.

Since we no longer have to ask "Where's Dave Chappelle?", let's get to the much more interesting question: "Just what has he been up to all this friggin time?"

Well, in about 11 days, we all get to find out, and it should be a blast. It seems that, along with convalescing in South Africa, Dave took the time to throw a pretty wild party in Brooklyn last year.

And it seems Dave really does know how to throw down when he puts his heart into it. For this free concert event, he not only recruited pals Kanye West, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Dead Prez and others, he even managed to reunite the Fugees. And, thankfully, fimmaker Michel Gondry was on hand to capture it all for "Dave Chappelle's Block Party."

I must say, I'm really excited about this doco, scheduled for release Friday, March 3. Crazy or not, Chappelle is easily the funniest guy around right now, as we all learned on his Comedy Central Show.

As we also learned there, he has impeccable taste in and connections to the hip-hop world, bringing on as musical guests Common and Kanye, de la Soul and Big Boi, among many others. He also managed to recruit the GZA and the RZA for multiple comedy sketches, including the priceless racial draft where they were recruited with the rest of the Wu Tang to join the Asians. Rude, wrong and really hilarious.

How Chappelle and Gondry got connected I have no idea, but we should all give thanks. If any of you haven't seen Gondry's "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", well, I don't know what to say except do it. Gondry's fractured view of time and space should mesh well with Chappelle's likewise view of the world around him.

The long trailer available at Yahoo! promises a great mix of Chappelle cutting up with his friends pitching in some great music. Check it out here.

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