Das Racist came to Pitzer this past weekend to the delight of 5C students from all music genre-associated demographics. By the time the set was over, I spent at least a minute trying to escape the crowd… which is a reasonably long time to be walking through an audience of a 5C concert.
My friends and I arrived at 10PM sharp, as instructed by the facebook event page, to a generally dismal scene. A handful of drunk girls were dancing to a rather terrible DJ and the large grassy area blocked off by fencing stood almost entirely empty. To the right was a cake and a bowl of lollypops, which I took advantage of, and an untapped keg. After about an hour of waiting around and moseying on up to the stage, Das Racist came on to decent sized crowd. Heems, Kool A.D. and Dap emerge and dance around a bit on stage, joking with one another, and entertaining and baiting the crowd. Once they started the first song, the crowd erupted into a giant dance-mass with bodies on bodies swaying and grinding as a rather bizarre collective group.
Although performing tracks from their two releases, Shut Up, Dude and Sit Down, Man, I was mostly disappointed with the unrecognizable nature of the show on the whole. The sound wasn’t great and a large portion of the rapping was inaudible. I love Das Racist for their hilarious and pop-culture-referential style, but as the majority of the performance came across as the three members just yelling over one another, I was mildy let down. That being said, the trio has excellent stage presence. I was certainly laughing as they jumped around stage, engaging the audience and toying with animal soundboards (tiger’s roar or eagle’s caw?).
As expected, “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell” had the whole crowd singing along (it’s a rather simple song…). However, the group did not perform my personal favorite “Hahahaha jk?” so that may have left an admittedly-biased bad taste in my mouth. Regardless, Das Racist put on an entertaining show that I’m glad I only had to walk 10 minutes up to Pitzer to attend.
Review and photos by Ari Mygatt