Swedish rapper Timbuktu takes his story

NEW YORK — The Harlem Stage Gatehouse theater is reopening this week with a performance postponed by the pandemic.

CBS2’s Jessi Mitchell has a behind-the-scenes look at “A Drop of Midnight,” which follows a tale of race relations and family lines across continents.

It has been years-in-the-making moment. Jason Diakite, also known as Swedish rapper Timbuktu, is telling his story on the Harlem Stage.

The original premiere date was March 30, 2020.

“One of the many blessings with the pandemic postponement is that now Jonathan McCrory is directing, which I’m very, very excited about,” Diakite said.

Diakite’s memoir “A Drop of Midnight” has evolved beyond the page. McCrory aims to bring the audience into a transformative performance.

“What is the takeaway from this set?” Mitchell asked.

“The desire is like really trying to make like an unplugged session. Those unplugged notions where we get to sit with an artist, witness their truth, and feel their performance from a different vantage point,” McCrory said.

Timbuktu had chart-topping success as a pioneer in Swedish hip hop. He first started rapping in 1989.

“My cousin from Brooklyn had come to live with us in Sweden, and he brought his tapes with him and he embodied hip hop very much,” Diakite said. “It is a culture and I was the first rapper in my town.”

His career took off, but despite his following, Diakite says he still felt like he didn’t fit in.

“What does racism look like in Sweden?” Mitchell asked.

“It’s different. Sweden is also a country with a very clear identity of being one people, of one culture, also meaning of one color,” Diakite said.

A child of interracial American parents, Diakite explores how his biracial experience ties to his Black father’s family.

His performance traces his ancestry from a South Carolina plantation through Harlem.

He held his first musical reading of the memoir at fellow Swede Marcus Samuelsson’s Red Rooster.

“Erik played the piano while I was reading from the book. The Rakiem Walker Band and Gloria Ryan and myself sang songs in between, and I was like, ‘Guys, we could do this for 90 minutes,’” Diakite said.

“A Drop of Midnight,” the performance, premiered in Sweden in 2017. Harlem Stage decided to invest in a reimagining for an American audience.

“The pandemic kind of took a detour for so many arts institutions and where they weren’t able to make moments like this occur, and this is kind of a pinch-me moment, to be honest,” McCrory said.

So you can take a journey through Timbuktu’s timeline for one week only.

“A Drop of Midnight” premieres Monday at Harlem Stage Gatehouse and performances will run through Saturday.