Slick Rick displays his rap strengths

Slick Rick’s recent stint in jail battling a deportation order may be better known than his latest album, but the veteran rapper’s set Wednesday at the Key Club -- his first show since his release in November -- proved there was good artistic reason so many stars, including Chris Rock and Will Smith, had spoken out for release of the England-born, Bronx-bred performer.

His deft old-school style was pure entertainment that traded only partly on nostalgia. Strutting around the stage all in white from Bally loafers to fedora, his iconic eye patch in silver and encrusted with what looked like diamonds, he tossed out lines from his 1980s hits with Doug E. Fresh, such as “The Show,” and B-boy standard such as “Mona Lisa,” from his best solo album, “The Great Adventures of Slick Rick.”

That song showed the roots of hip-hop’s more playful relationship with R&B;, slipping in and out of Nat King Cole’s standard, with everyone in the audience (including Cypress Hill’s B-Real and Sen Dog) singing at top volume. Despite his gangster-ish reputation, Slick Rick’s quick, intelligent style is still all about a lighthearted party.

He stayed onstage for only a 30-minute set of eight songs, and the highlight came just before the end, when a woman came out to help Slick Rick exchange his new millennium bling for some ‘80s-style Bronx B-boy jewelry: three dinner plate-size medallions on gold ropes and rings like brass knuckles for each hand, to the crowd’s roaring approval.

It didn’t seem out of date -- hip-hop incorporates its past into its most current material. Or maybe being fresh out of jail just makes everything seem new.