I got there a little late and missed Elevator Fight, which made me sad, but I was there in time for most of Janelle Monae's AMAZING performance. Finally settled into my (surprisingly close) spot, I was just in time for her beautiful version of "Smile" in honor of Michael Jackson. It had a hypnotizing effect on the crowd and you could almost hear a pin drop everyone was so quiet. That is except for the 2 women who REFUSED to stop chatting for two seconds right behind me (Ya'll stay classy, ladies). Thankfully, the crowd was like a giant living organism, which pulsed and moved, ultimately bringing me even closer to the stage (and further from the sisters "Yaks-a-Lot"). I felt so lucky to finally see her live, she has that old school kind of talent that kept making me think of Judy Garland.

Then there were the bikers doing stunts between her set and Saul Williams'. Though the bikers were talented and enthusiastic about their craft, the display was unsettling for 3 very good reasons:

1) The majority of them had on minimal (if any) protective gear.
2) There were large and low hanging trees near the ramps, making the probability of a branch/skull collision frightfully high
3) They were doing some crazy things on those bikes in the face of reasons 1&2.

I caught the eyes of many other concerned on-lookers and there were a lot of collective shudders and sighs of relief.

Finally Saul Williams' band came on and I have to say, I loved them immediately. The nerdy guitarist in the 70's yellow prom jacket and yellow patterned hammer pants, the keyboardist in goggles and head scarf and finally my new eternal love CX KiDTRONiK. In light up sunglasses, leg and arm pads and a drum machine, he lit up the stage. After some beats were laid down, Saul strutted out like a peacock on ladies night. He gave a great performance, then let CX KiDTRONiK's band "Krak Attack" get on stage and do 2 songs. "King of Pop" was by far the best: "Micheal Jackson made the hits that helped you make yo' f***in' kids. Micheal Jackson ain't touch your kids. Micheal Jackson ain't touch no kids" Understandably the moshing started IMMEDIATELY and I spent the rest of the night giggling over that. Good times. Thanks Afro-Punk!

The Afro-Punk Festival in Brooklyn is the best 50/50 show I've been to yet.

The festival itself can be a little overwhelming if you've never been there before. I walked in and was immediately hit with a wall of people -- and it wasn't even 6PM yet. There were crowds all around me, food vendors, drink vendors, the music stage, a graffiti wall for artists to show off their skills, and both bike ramps and skate ramps set up everywhere. Everything was covered in color.

I sat for a little bit while there was no music and watched people for awhile. Most of the kids doing the skate ramps looked like they were under 18, which was great to see; knowing there's an opportunity for younger, untrained skaters to get some practice time in made me really happy. While the kids on skateboards were mostly male -- and there were a LOT of them -- there was one, lone, badass chick in the crowd throwing it down with the rest of them. No one was particularly talented, but it didn't seem to matter. Everyone got a couple of tricks in and went on their way to the back of the line to wait for their next shot.

While I was watching them skate, I heard a band come on so I turned my attention over to them. Elevator Fight was playing for the crowd, who were already pretty tightly packed in. They were good -- knew how to work the crowd though they seemed more amateur than the later acts (which is easy to do, considering who followed them on stage). Elevator Fight is fronted by none other than Zoe Kravitz, a name I'm sure most people recognise. They are self-described as sounding like "if you threw Daft Punk, a panda, and like, citrus in a blender; it's like that old rock and roll thing meets that new, crazy, everything else thing." Oddly, that's kind of fitting. Kravitz is a very enigmatic and energetic frontwoman: she's a tiny ball of nervous motion standing and singing in front of the four dudes behind her as they rock out and throw themselves around the stage. Her voice fits, too -- half singing low and sultry and half speaking hard and fast. I liked them a lot and I'd really like to see them again in a place where I was closer to the stage.

There was a break, and then Janelle Monae was announced. The MC described her as one of the most phenomenal performers of all time, and then she stepped out on stage to uproarious approval. Monae was an underground hit for a long time, and she's only recently exploded onto the scene. I have to admit that I'd heard some of her music, but mostly what I knew about her was this: the people that I love? They love her. They sing her praises and tell you to worship her, mostly. I never really took their advice, but I think now that I will. Monae is every kind of music thrown together in a way that works like it shouldn't. She's glam meets soul, pop meets hardcore, old-school meets new-school, jazz meets techno -- and she works it all perfectly. Her pompadour hair rivals the best in the business and her white tuxedo outfit gave her another dynamic altogether. On stage, she's wildly energetic: crazy eyes, throwing her arms around, dancing along with the beat, and engaging the crowd. The only time I really saw her slow it down was for "Smile," when she sang standing on a box on stage in honor of Michael Jackson. The crowd hushed, everyone paid attention, and I'm pretty sure that people around me were crying -- it was a magical moment. Directly after, she launched into a song that had an intermission where the band played and she painted on stage. Upon finishing her artwork, she lifted it above people's heads and gave it to a little girl in the audience who was sitting on her dad or mom's shoulders, arms outstretched toward Monae. For her last number, "Tightrope," she leapt into the crowd and let them hold her up before pushing her back on stage. A+ performance from an A+ woman. She was the perfect person to have at Afro-Punk.

During the time between Monae and Saul Williams, Bulldog Bikes put on a show for the waiting crowd. They're a BMX bike crew who do high jumps, all sorts of tricks, and crazy stunts with little care but a lot of talent. The only bad part about the bike show was that there were guys doing tricks with no protective gear on and there was no barricade between them and one side of the crowd. Pretty dangerous, if you ask me. But there is always an upside: I got to see dudes on bikes doing backflips in the air, which is always a good time.

Saul Williams and his band were up next, and they certainly made an impression from the moment they stepped on stage. Williams is an entity unto himself: music star, spoken word legend, and totally crazy character. While the band behind him was dressed in get-ups that consisted of neon flashing glasses, capes, football padding, etc., Williams stepped on stage in Bowie face makeup, a red marching band jacket, and feathers in his hair. He began his show with a mock-reading of a mock-scroll, dedicating the show in the name of so many great writers and musicians and performers before him. The list was extensive and covered all genres of great artists, giving a nod to how widely influenced he himself has been by all sorts of art in the world. His last dedication was that to Michael Jackson, and that seemed to be a theme throughout the night. Williams is hard to describe when he's on stage, because everything he does seems personal and almost too intimate. When he speaks his poetry, it feels a bit like you're watching him write it in that moment -- and when he sings and raps, you're watching him discover a new kind of music he thought no one had ever made before. You can see the moment when the emotions in what he's saying combine with the music behind his words, whether or not the lyrics have a melody of any kind other than screaming.

He brought out his friend CX KidTronik to help him do a few songs, and Williams essentially stood back and let the rest of his band perform. For this portion of the night, there was a lot more hardcore screaming into the microphone, with his drummer, at one point, yelling "Michael Jackson never touched no kids," while the crowd echoed the sentiment back pretty fervently. They thrashed around stage and fell over themselves trying to yell as loud as they could, and the crowd moshed in tandem. It was really, seriously excellent to see.

The last song of the night came to us after Williams proclaimed, "I'm not leaving the stage if they're not going to be forceful about it. I want to play!" He launched into a cover of U2's "Sunday, Bloody Sunday," and closed out the show with an exceptionally poignant note. He's not someone you can watch and not pay attention to -- he demands that your mind be on him at every moment, and it's worth it to comply.

Last night’s Afro-Punk show in BAM’s parking lot drew a large, hip and mostly black crowd to watch Saul Williams and soul sensation Janelle Monae perform. “I thought you were Asher Roth,” remarked a young dreadlocked man after doing a double take as I waded through the crowd to get a better view of the stage for Janelle Monae’ debut.

“One of the most phenomenal performers of all time!” announced a festival MC, as Monae wearing her trademark pompadour and white tuxedo combo took the stage along with a drummer, guitarist, and DJ. As she belted out tracks from her futuristic concept album, Metropolis Suite I of IV, Monae’s soaring voice and theatrical performance style electrified the crowd and invoked both fascination and astonishment. Signed to Badboy Records, Janelle Monae is a difficult singer to classify. Her set vacillated between genres as she channeled influences from metal to jazz, and everything in between. Monae's Bowie-meets-James Brown stylings have garnered her a wealth of praise in recent months and make her an appropriate figurehead for the Afro-Punk festival itself. Monae kicked things off with “Violet Stars Happy Hunting,” while dancing eccentrically in a spastic, twist-like style. She then launched into the half rapped, half sung “Many Moons” as two break dancers popped and locked on the roof of an adjacent building. As Monae walked off stage between songs, her band was left alone on the stage jamming towards a rocking climax of clanging symbols and screeching guitars. Monae returned, stood on a box and paused silently before singing the haunting “Smile” as her guitarist provided minimal accompaniment with jazzy strums. A canvas was placed on stage for “Sincerely, Jane," and Monae wailed while painting abstract shapes before handing her creation to an ecstatic fan. Monae whipped the crowd into a frenzy with the pop/R&B “Tightrope” diving into the crowd before ending her set to exuberant, impassioned applause.

Spoken word legend and musical genre experimenter Saul Williams was next. After an intermission and a BMX contest, an announcer asked the crowd “If you're ready to get your mind blown? If you're ready to get your Brooklyn on? If you're ready to get your Obama on?” I assume we were ready, because Saul Williams' band assembled on stage wearing Planet Rock inspired futuristic outfits that combined Arabian head scarves, football pads and strategically placed electronics. The band looked ready to blow minds; they kicked things off with skronking heavy metal and industrial noise as band member Kid Tronic pounded his MPC emphatically. Williams entered stage right dressed in a bright red drum major’s jacket, along with a feathered Indian headdress and face paint. Brandishing a large scroll, Williams recited a mock commandment, “In the name of Ginsberg…Shabazz, Siddhartha, Medusa….Cosby…And Michael Jackson” to uproarious applause. Williams launched into the high energy and lyrically vivid “Convict Colony,” a track that was produced by Trent Reznor of NIN and certainly sounds like it. Williams had a mystical air as he delivered poetry between songs before admitting “I don’t feel like poetry. I feel like music,” kicking into “Tr(N)Igger” as CX KidTronik played the MPC with his foot, standing on the table that held it. “Tr(N)Igger” features a Public Enemy sample, a fitting tribute to a group that deeply influenced and energized the politically charged Williams. The band performed the stand out “Black Stacy” over lurching piano with members of the crowd joining in on the chorus. Williams does not have a typical singer’s voice and was occasionally atonal; his voice cracked as he performed echoing vocals on songs like “List Of Demands.” With the crowd shouting for more, Williams performed a cover of U2’s “Sunday, Bloody Sunday” to end the night. Hundreds of pumped up spectators streamed out of the lot and onto the streets.