Best Open-Mike Night

DJ Snowhite hosts this gathering of urban poets and aspiring hip-hop stars every Tuesday in the confines of the dark, rectangular club Zanzibar. An assemblage of youth gathers to compete, unleashing prepared and extemporaneous raps and other poetry that ranges in quality from borderline brilliant to painfully lame. The Spam Allstars attempt to accommodate the performers with music to suit their spoken words. The atmosphere is supportive of all types of risk-taking and experimentation, with spontaneous poetry slams occurring inside and outside the club. On those occasions when the band and a performer click, Faatland Tuesdays achieves the sublime.