The show Wyclef Jean put on last Thursday at Avery Fisher Hall was a summing-up of his entire seven album career, a bold amalgamation of rap, soul, rock, soca, and reggae. In other words, he played hip-hop.

But there was a lot more at stake than a good show, as Wyclef, to his credit, knew. Outside of jazz, Lincoln Center rarely showcases black music. In fact, Wynton Marsalis was once vocal about his disdain for rap. Though he no longer trumpets that position, his opinion fuels the institution’s underlying attitude that hip-hop is inherently bad.

In the evening’s Playbill, for example, Daara J, a three-man hip-hop outfit from Senegal, was praised because its latest album “avoids the chauvinistic, materialistic subject matter saturating mainstream rap,” as if describing what it isn’t tells you what it is. It’s a backhanded compliment that translates roughly to: It’s a good piece of work in a bad genre of music.

This negative attitude toward hip-hop was also evident in the way security treated the audience. The crowd wanted to move closer to the stage and dance in the aisles, but the guards feared the potential for mayhem. They repeatedly tried to force the audience to sit down. Wyclef chided the security several times for unnecessarily harsh tactics. At one point he snatched an officer’s hat, put it on his own head and proclaimed: “I need the security to relax. There are no guns or bullets here. This is Wyclef Jean, not 50 Cent.”

Daara J opened the show and had the audience in a frenzy from the onset. It’s hard to say whether the excitement was triggered by the potent reggae and rap-inflected rhythms or the group’s unique rhyming style – an offshoot of “tasso,” a Senegalese poetic tradition used to discuss current events. Their high-energy dances resembled break dancing and pop-locking.

Before the unit launched into “Boomerang,” the title track from their third, and most recent, CD, they pressed the crowd to keep moving. “In Africa, it’s not just about singing,” vocalist Faada Freddy explained, “It’s also about dancing.” One thing’s fairly certain: Avery Fisher Hall had never been illuminated by lighters and mobile phones before this.

After a brief intermission Wyclef’s DJ, Leon Higgins, stepped onstage and re-energized the crowd with a medley of Michael Jackson favorites, which he followed with a dexterous display of beat-juggling that utilized the Run DMC classic “Peter Piper.” It’s not uncommon to hear this record in a juggling routine, but Higgins upped the difficulty quotient by mixing the records behind his back and then with his shirt pulled over his head.

Higgins was joined onstage by drummer Donald Guillaume, bassist Jerry “Wonder” Duplessis, keyboardist Robert Aaron, and finally Wyclef, who referred to himself several times as “James Bond” because he was sporting a black tuxedo. He quickly laid down a rap that included verses in English, Spanish, Haitian creole, and Japanese.

Next up was “Jump Around,” a favorite with white rap fans. The track was a smash hit in 1992 when it was originally released by the Irish rappers House of Pain. Lauryn Hill’s name was bandied about several times. At one point before Wyclef segued into “Fu-Gee-La” he announced to the crowd, “Mrs. Hill, can you hear me Mrs. Hill? I want another Fugees album.” Don’t we all.

The glue that held this concert together was Wyclef’s versatility. After his first few rap numbers, he strapped on a sparkling electric guitar and turned out the Chuck Berry classic “Let It Rock.” He played the instrument behind his head and with his teeth without missing a beat, before taking the tempo down to a simmer with a stirring rendition of his tragic soul song, “911.” The show turned into a family affair when Wyclef introduced his sister, Melky Sedeck, who took a gospel approach to Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come.”

At times, Wyclef got political. He repeatedly called for President Bush to “send the troops home” and later reworked Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song,” singing, “How long will they kill Iraqis while we stand aside and look?” He ended the show by saying, in jest, “Go in peace. And if the police stop you tonight, tell them you were at the Wyclef concert and no shots were fired.”

During “We Trying To Stay Alive,” Wyclef pulled Greg Pereira from Shelton, Conn., onstage to rap the first verse. Dressed in khaki shorts and a powder-blue polo, the 31-year-old suburban white guy did not look the part. But he took the microphone with confidence and nailed the entire verse without missing a word.

“Who is the Wyclef audience?” Wyclef asked when Mr. Pereira returned the microphone. “Intelligent people you underestimate.”