Tonight: Action Bronson Serves It Up at Warehouse Live

Harrison Ford is an Action Bronson fan. No, seriously; granted, I’ve got no clue whether he likes Bronson’s music, but in a recent GQ interview (which you should absolutely read, by the way), the bullshit-hating, laconic actor apparently likes Fuck, That’s Delicious, Bronsons food-themed show on VICELAND. Yes, run that through your brain again: Han Solo likes a food show hosted by a rapper called Fuck, That’s Delicious.

And hell, who can blame him? The show’s like a seriously profane version of Bizarre Foods, if Andrew Zimmern happened to be both a chef and a rapper; the imposing-yet-cheerful, red-bearded Bronson eats food, raves about food, cooks food, writes about food (he’s got a new cookbook out now, published last month, and it sounds like it’s pretty good), drinks, travels around the world, and cusses a lot. It’s fun as hell, and you definitely get the man’s genuine, honest love of cuisine.

Check out Bronson and his crew visiting New Orleans, below. It’s almost worth is just to see the guy wearing a lily pad as a hat while out in the swamp on an airboat:

And then, here’s the most recent installment, with Bronson and company in Paris:

Now, it may sound like a sideshow to Bronson’s rap career, but it wasn’t always that way — rather, the Queens-bred Bronson (born Arian Asllani) was a chef first, and reportedly a pretty good one, who had his own online cooking show before rap fans anywhere outside of NYC had ever heard his name. This is a man who knows, and loves, food.

Of course, none of this would matter much at all if he sucked at the rap side of the game…and happily, he doesn’t. Bronson’s latest, this year’s Blue Chips 7000, is a shining example of what NY hip-hop should sound like, with a serious, serious Wu-Tang vibe to it, complete with a love of ’70s kung fu flicks and ’70s funk.

More than anything else, Bronson makes me think of Ghostface Killah circa Fishscale, and that’s not minor praise from me, because GF is hands-down my favorite member of the Wu-Tang, and that album is one of my all-time favorites ever. Both Bronson and Ghost have high-ish voices, higher than you’d expect from two big dudes, and they’ve both got this fast-moving, c’mon-man-you-gotta-hear-this insistence to their verses that I can’t help but love.

That said, the Wu-Tang resemblance is just that, a resemblance, and Bronson makes it his own thing. Blue Chips is far jazzier than anything the Wu’s ever done, less hard-edged and more thoughtful, and more actually real than most of the fantastical stuff Ghost and his compadres rap about. Bronson is real, musing at one point that he’d give a lung if he could dunk a basketball just one time and talking about needing a couple of puffs from his inhaler on another track. He’s impressively self-aware and honest, and it’s awesome.

And, yeah, he doesn’t take himself too seriously, which is also awesome. Watch the utterly bizarre, ’70s-beyond-belief video for “The Chairman’s Intent” for proof:

It’s gloriously crazy and nonsensical, with clips where Bronson’s “flying” over the city in a hanglider, multiple half-assed fight scenes, car chases with literally nobody doing the chasing, and plenty of old-film fake stutter cuts to make it vintage. The whole damn thing looks like it was a blast to make.

Go see Action Bronson when he hits town tonight, Friday, October 6th, with Meyhem Lauren up at Warehouse Live; the dude is something seriously unique.