Most critics like it, and for the same two reasons: Dave Chappelle and the music. The reviews describe a sunny, good-natured concert film in which Chappelle is less a star than a genial host, wandering Bed-Stuy handing out invitations and getting laughs from whoever he meets. The lineup of socially conscious hip-hop and R&B acts draws almost as much praise, with the Fugees reunion and an Ohio marching band singled out as the moments that carry the day’s spirit.
The reservations fall on Michel Gondry’s direction. Several critics find the film loose to the point of disorganisation, and The Guardian and Slant Magazine both complain that his fast cutting interrupts performances just as they get going. The spread is otherwise narrow, with one outlier: the Evening Standard, reviewing years later, finds it noisy, adulatory and tuneless and objects to Chappelle himself. A couple of later pieces note that his subsequent career changes how the film reads.