A show of dizzying potential

Too brief and bumpy to fully register, too brash and brilliant to be dismissed, the Los Angeles live debut by touted English rapper Dizzee Rascal on Thursday at the Key Club served as a teasing glimpse of his vast promise.

At 19, he’s already come a long way in a short time from his origins in London’s tough East End. With his taut, innovatively minimalist production and gift for flavorful language, his album “Boy in Da Corner” has become a critical sensation, making the Top 10 in the Village Voice critics’ poll as an import, before its recent U.S. release.

A big reason for that response is the melancholy songs such as “Sittin’ Here” and “Brand New Day,” which, with a yearning ache, reflect on the loss of youthful innocence as he grows up in his Cockney district. That element was missing from Thursday’s half-hour set, possibly on the assumption that a concert has to be strictly up-tempo, but at least Rascal didn’t coast through it with the mechanical, party-time approach that usually defines live hip-hop.

He seemed attentive and alive to the moment. In fact, the most impressive aspects of the show seemed impromptu, such as the a cappella rap he launched during a delay that followed an apparent missed cue by his DJ. Rascal (whose real name is Dylan Mills) jumped into the silence with an astonishingly fast and relentlessly rhythmic display that was to normal rap what tap-dancing is to walking. All you could do was jump on board and hang on tight.

Things were sometimes choppy, especially in his coordination with his DJ, but the passion and purpose that powered key “Boy” tracks and a second unaccompanied rap suggested that this performance was just the tip of an iceberg.