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Ain’t nothin’ but a party, y’all.

Back in 2004, before Dave Chappelle got all twisted up in his own success, the comedian organized and hosted one perfect day — a rather impromptu rap party held on the asphalt of Brooklyn.

It’s music for the people, featuring Kanye West, Common, Erykah Badu, the Roots, Mos Def, and an onstage reunion of the Fugees.

The entire ego-free affair is captured in this delightful documentary by French director Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). And no one enjoys the free festivities more than Chappelle, who wanders through the film like a kid on Christmas morning. A very funny kid.

The footage actually begins three days before the event in the small Ohio town Chappelle calls home. He walks around randomly inviting people to the show, everyone from silver-haired seniors to a college marching band he stumbles across.

In this small-town setting, the prospect of carrying off a large-scale, urban all-star concert seems ridiculously ambitious, even unlikely. But that is one of the wonders of Block Party: Chappelle’s ability to move quicksilver-like between common folk and rap royalty.

The action shifts to Brooklyn and the remarkably relaxed lead-up to the show. There’s a musical rehearsal session, which, in the time-honoured comic tradition, he seizes as one long opportunity to crack up the horn section.

The concert itself, with Roots drummer ?uestlove holding it down as bandleader, is sublime, from Kanye West performing Jesus Walks to Talib Kweli in a Phillies cap doing a blistering Get By. The headliners and special guests such as Big Daddy Kane and John Legend blend and recombine in many permutations.

The only disappointment is the climactic Fugees reunion. Lauryn Hill takes the stage looking like Oprah with a Yankees cap stuck sideways on her head. Her voice is ragged and fluttery as she performs Roberta Flack’s Killing Me Softly.

Chappelle, however, is in top form, throwing out pop references from James Brown to Lil Jon, from Willie Wonka to Mr. T.

At one point, driving around the streets of Bedford Stuyvesant in a minivan, using a megaphone to announce an open invitation to the neighbourhood, he passes a neat row of brownstones. “Attention, Huxtables,” he shouts, “... bring Rudy.” The man is just as funny vamping alone in front of a mirror in Ohio, posing in tacky clothes and trying out his pimp rap.

The signal accomplishment of Block Party is the magic of its editing. The segments jump back and forth in time and location, shifting from long shots to intense close-ups, sliding from slo-mo to kinetic stage action. And yet it all seems so seamless.

Of course, it’s hard to miss when the music, the comedy, and the mood on the street are all this infectious.[[In-content Ad]]

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