Dante Terrell Smith has been reborn. Or so he appeared on stage last night.

He performed in front of a large screen-display of the Milky Way, with snippets of old soul music blasting and one of two t-shirts hanging from his neck as he began to remove it three songs into his set but never quite got the job done.

And he grinned, from ear to ear, the pleased-as-punch look of a young boy on his birthday. Singing high, or low, semi-yelling, usually out of tune, but pitch-perfect nontheless if you take into account mood, scene, and lyric. And the Mighty Mos seems to always consider these things.

“I’m not looking for you to agree with me, or for you to understand me. I just want you to respect me.” And with this exlanation the odyssey began from high energy to mellow to “aca-polka” spoken-word sets lambasting governments and human corruption.

It was pure hip-hop perfection from the beginning to the end. I left feeling cleansed in a way my childhood trips to church never inspired. I do not believe in a God, but I am in awe of this man.