Written by Sean Ward | Photography by Philip Litevsky

Everybody knows that Toronto has a reputation as a complacent audience. We go to a live show and we mostly stare at it like it’s television, clapping politely and maybe even whooping a bit in all of the right places. It’s hard for an artist to get interaction from the audience throughout the song, or to show any appreciation for the artist beyond. I remember when DJ Premier spun at Revival, and he was trying to get the crowd to chant “Claaaaaaa…siiiiiiiic….” over the song he was spinning but each time, the crowd stopped when he did. No doubt, anyone who is a part of Mos Def’s entourage would likely attribute Mos’ reception on November 14 at The Phoenix in Toronto to our frigid notoriety. But I have always believed that it is not the audience’s responsibility to go crazy for the performer; it is the performer’s responsibility to give the audience something to go crazy over.

This should have been a slam dunk. All of the ingredients were present for an evening to remember: a sold-out venue, an enthusiastic crowd, and a beloved artist who has one of hip-hop’s all-time classic albums to his credit. But despite moments of great promise, the show never quite came together.

I empathize with Mos Def. It’s kind of like he’s The Who in the 80s. By most accounts, his best work is behind him but he’s not so old that it’s time to resign himself to the nostalgia circuit. It’s easy to say that he should just give the fans what they want and pack his set full of material from 1999’s BLACK ON BOTH SIDES. But he’s a capital-A Artist, and he’s still active. And like the The Who going out and playing Tommy for the several-hundredth time while they’re still an active recording band, Mos Def’s performance seemed like it was colored by an ever-present feeling of “It was eight years ago! Can we move on???”

But even that doesn’t get to the heart of why this show was less than great. Mos Def is one of the most charismatic personalities in hip-hop. He should be able to read the phone book and have us eating out of the palm of his hand. But for much of the show, the audience wasn’t even paying attention to him. If he would have played a steady set of bangin’ songs, maybe it would have been a different story. But an uncomfortably large portion of his time spent on stage consisted of various forms of self-indulgence (Scat jazz, really long intros/outros, and over-long performances of songs that weren’t making the crowd hype were the most common offenses). I don’t want to believe this, but it’s as though he knew the crowd wanted to hear the old stuff, resented them for it, and strung them along to get to it. He only played two songs from BLACK ON BOTH SIDES. Two! In a 90-minute set! And aside from a raucous and energetic welcome, the audience spent the rest of the show socializing, drinking, chatting, wandering about the venue. Aside from the obvious perking up of the attention for those aforementioned two songs, the only parts of the set that captured the audience were when his DJ spun Kanye’s I WONDER and Marvin Gaye’s WHAT’S GOING ON, with Mos leading the crowd in a big sing-along.

But Mos Def has our hearts. This crowd was not going to give up on him that easily. When it became clear that his set was drawing to a close, everyone (that hadn’t left already) threw everything they had into showering Mos with love through his last number and as he left the stage. The chant started up almost immediately: “Mos! Mos! Mos! Mos!” But there would be no encore. The house lights came on and everyone was stunned. Then everyone booed. You could almost feel the smack of hearts hitting the floor as they sank.

I still do not give up on Mos Def that easily. I don’t know whether his heart is not in the music any more or if he’s lost touch or what the difficulty is, but I still think that he holds the promise of future great albums. But it would have been really nice to have seen a glimmer of that promise at the Phoenix.