Last night my wife and I went to see Mary Lucia of the Current interview Chuck D and Slug from Atmosphere and hear Brother Ali perform during their season-ending Fakebook series event at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul.

I didn’t know exactly what to expect, but it was a very entertaining evening. Brother Ali performed two songs at the start (including an awesome version of Letter from the Government with added verses at the end), followed by about an hour interview of Chuck D.

There was a short intermission, then Slug performed a few songs (including Guarantees from the new album When Life Gives You Lemons You Paint That Shit Gold). Slug joined Chuck D on the couch and Mary interviewed both of them. Brother Ali came out again at the end and performed one song solo, followed by a free-style jam with Slug (no old school rap from Mr. Ridenhour though, dammit).

Chuck D talked about the early history of hip-hop, including stories about Rick Rubin at Def-Jam, Flavor Flav, Run-DMC and the Beastie Boys. There were a lot of great quotes and references–hopefully MPR posts the audio somewhere so I can go back and write them down. Not much talk about the future of the music business like I wanted, but it would still be great for the students at HSRA to hear the whole interview. Ironically, he said he visited my high school, St. Paul Central, earlier in the day (”Dave Winfield and Charles Schultz–how can you go wrong?”).

If the Fakebook series comes back again, check it out–great format at a decent price.