Del tha Funky Homosapien @ Warehouse Live

Houston's live music calendar always improves a bit around the time of Austin City Limits. Spill-off from the festival generally leads to several of the festival acts booking dates in nearby cities the week leading up to the event. We took advantage of a few of these shows, with our first one taking place on Wednesday, September 24 when Del tha Funky Homosapien and a few of his friends took the stage in the Studio at Warehouse Live.

Read more about the night after the jump

The aftermath of Hurricane Ike was still being felt throughout the city, with the midnight curfew mainly affecting Houston's nightlife. Knowing that set times for any band coming to Houston would start early and be abbreviated, we headed to Warehouse Live at 9:00 to a smaller-than-normal crowd. When we walked into the Studio, we were greeted by what could only be described as a scene from a middle school dance. The evening's patrons had glued themselves to either the bench seats lining one of the walls or up against the bar in a single file manner. Absolutely no one occupied the middle of the space. To top that off, a DJ-backed R&B singer was belting his heart out to the oddly aligned crowd - I don't remember the last time I felt so awkward walking into a show. Cereal and I were somewhat confused and/or uncomfortable, so we decided to head outside until the next act took the stage. When we couldn't hear the bass anymore, we headed in to see if the room had normalized.

We returned indoors and, to our dismay, the audience members were still pretty much in the same positions. We grabbed a beer, and a spot on the empty floor, and awaited the beginning of Oakland rapper Bukue One's set. He soon came to the stage with some turntable help from Zac Hendrix, who has been touring with Del and crew for some time, and started his set for the still lame-duck crowd. Bukue One, equipped with an Obama shirt, skateboard, and two microphones, made it through a set of originals and freestyles that seemed to impress even the shyest of wallflowers. The attendees started to spread out towards the stage, with Bukue One's flows finally bringing some life to the mixed Houston crowd. Earlier in the year, I was able to get a small taste of what Bukue One had to offer when he joined Del at Wakarusa to serve as hype man, as well as add a few of his own rhymes to the mix. I was impressed, but I did not hear enough to make a solid judgment. He didn't disappoint during this opening set. From the start of his show, he continually tried to make the audience participate with hand waving and call-and-responses. After a few failed attempts at livening up the crowd, the song "Cheese & Butter" finally did the trick. "Too much cheese!" shouted Bukue One, while the audience responded loud and clear with, "Not enough butter!" Unfortunately, right when everybody was getting into it, Bukue One had to make a swift departure as only about an hour remained before Houston's curfew would force us to vacate the building. The raucous approval from Bukue One's new fans was quite unexpected after seeing the venue at the beginning of his set. He did a good job of bringing the crowd to life by making them a part of his show, and also gave Del tha Funky Homosapien a much better room to work with upon his arrival to stage.

With only about fifty minutes until we had to be out, Del made the most out of his abbreviated timeslot by playing through a list of his own favorite tunes. Joining him onstage for the majority of the set was MC A-Plus, with whom Del worked in hip-hop group Heiroglyphics, as well as aforementioned DJ Zac Hendrix, who had remained onstage after Bukue One finished up. Del did not let up from the beginning of his set. Many musicians and bands would be extremely disheartened by a below average-sized crowd, but Del and A-Plus continually thanked those in attendance for making it out despite the surrounding circumstances. The crowd returned the favor by emitting enough energy to make up for what it was lacking in size.

Del tha Funky Homsapien

A-Plus

Zac Hendrix

Del tha Funky Homosapien

Del played through several tunes off of last year's The Eleventh Hour including "Put My Foot Down" and "Workin' It," which showed of his incredible freestyle skills. He has a knack for using his choruses as somewhat of an outer structure, while intertwining his written lyrics with off-the-cuff flows that sometimes end up fitting better than what was originally put on wax. One great example of this was with his set-ender, Gorillaz's "Clint Eastwood," that found Del completely freestyling over the parts originally sung by Gorillaz frontman Damon Albarn. Del showed that hip-hop is also allowed to be humorous when he tore though a version of "If You Must," which has the rapper exhorting his listeners to properly cleanse their asses, hair and teeth, or they're "gonna get funky!" The set's ultimate highlight for me was when Del jumped into "Mistadobalina" off of his first album, I Wish My Brother George Was Here. "Mistadobalina" first made it to my earwaves back in 1999 when I was heavily into hip-hop. I listened to that album when a friend gave me a recommendation, sharing with me that it was Ice Cube's less gangsta, but just as talented cousin from Oakland. I did not fully absorb that album then, but did attach to "Mistadobalina." I had already heard it live at Wakarusa in the summer, but with the intimate surroundings, it was just that much better this time around.

The show ended quite quickly with what seemed to be an even shorter set than opener Bukue One's earlier in the night. I knew that there was an opportunity to catch him again at ACL, but I also now had an excuse to see someone else playing during the same time (which we did). I wish that we had gotten a longer show from Del, but with the city still trying to revitalize itself after the storm, I completely understood. We had a full weekend of music, including a nice blues set the next night from Back Door Slam in the same room, so we went home well satisfied with the good night of hip-hop we'd just experienced.

For an intimate night that featured two energy-filled sets of impressive freestyle-based hip-hop, I give Del tha Funky Homosapien and Bukue One 8.2/10 yolks.

Check out more of Cereal's pictures from the night on our Flickr page.

More videos can be found on our YouTube channel.

-Eggs