Das Racist took the stage last night to a sparsely-filled Mercury Lounge. But those who were there to take in their set were amped up and didn’t quite know what to expect. Himanshu Suri, the enigmatic de facto leader of the group, spent the first song of the set going down the line at the front of the stage picking up people’s drinks and aggressively taking sips. He seemed disappointed that at least half of the first-rowers were drinking water.  

Energy remained high as the guys ran through songs from their new mixtape, Shut Up, Dude.  I would say that the biggest audience reaction came at the start of “You Oughta Know,”  They finished their too-short set without playing “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell.”  I know some people in the audience must have been disappointed, but I’m not really sure how that song could work live anyway, so it didn’t bother me.

Seeing Das Racist live made me realize that they are as much a comedy group as they are a hip-hop group.  That’s not to put down their musical skills, which were exceptional throughout the show. I’m not the first to compare them to the Beastie Boys. They’ve done it themselves, multiple times. But they really do seem like the Beastie Boys of the “two thousand teens,” dropping sick rhymes and being hilarious at the same time. They fall somewhere in between Aziz Ansari’s Raaaaaaaandy and old-school Outkast and I’m looking forward to seeing what they do next.

All I’ll say about headliner Penguin Prison is that I’m not sure why Das Racist opened for them.

-MW