Reclusive comedian Dave Chappelle missed two flights out of Ohio last night and failed to get to a Manhattan fund-raiser for Congressional candidate Kevin Powell of Brooklyn.

The clip above shows Powell earlier in the evening, before the announcement about Chappelle, continuing to criticize incumbent Representative Ed Towns for what Powell thinks is a lack of leadership.

“My opponent does not chair a single committee after 25 years," Powell said to the audience. "I want y’all to think about that for a second. Why doesn’t he? Because he’s missed about a thousand votes since 1993.”

Later, while comedian Chris Rock, rapper RZA of Wu-Tang Clan and drummer ?uestlove of the Roots mingled in the VIP section with big-dollar donors, Powell returned to the stage and told the crowd of several hundred they would be admitted free to a rescheduled event sometime later.

One Powell organizer said Rock was willing to perform, but at the request of Chappelle’s management decided not to. The organizer, Arthur Leopold, said entertaining someone else’s audience violates professional courtesy between performers.

While some attendees left visibly angry during the long delay, most of the crowd waited mostly patiently for Chappelle.

(During the extended delay, a reporter from the Brooklyn paper Courier Life, Stephen Witt, took the stage and told a few jokes about being broke. The crowd booed and Witt, drink in hand, walked away. Later, Witt told me "everybody in the editorial room loves my 99-Cent Store routine.")

The event was supposed to be a watershed moment in Powell’s effort to oust Towns. Powell, a hip-hop journalist and former MTV Real World star (season one), has used his connections to the entertainment industry and support from Barack Obama’s network to promote his campaign. This event gathered a hoard of reporters from a wide range of news outlets—from Newsweek and Fox to Hot97.com.

One attendee, who was waiting patiently, told me, "This is better than a lot of other fund-raisers I got to, and we’re not even having fun yet."

 

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