Black Thought (left), meet Black Boo (right). The Roots and Mambo Sauce frontmen collaborated at the Kennedy Center, Sunday night. (All photos by Jahi Chikwendiu/TWP)

By Mark Jenkins

The Kennedy Center’s “An American Playlist” series promises an eclectic mix, and the wildest juxtapositions may be yet to come. But it’s unlikely that the two subsequent performances can rival the sheer oddness of Sunday night’s “An Evening of Music and Verse.” The Concert Hall show was a squirt of go-go, a splash of hip-hop and a big gulp of rage.

The 90-minute concert opened with Mambo Sauce, a local group that plays a smoothied version of go-go, D.C.’s syncopated brand of funk. The sextet soon relinquished the stage to a pair of dark-suited functionaries, including a guy from Target, a major funder of the center’s free concerts. They were followed by the show’s hosts, ?uestlove and Black Thought of the Roots, the
Philadelphia hip-hop group that is also Jimmy Fallon’s studio band. But the evening belonged to 15 young poetry slammers, most of whom performed without any musical accompaniment.

(Read the rest of this review and view more photos, after the jump)