Dressed in some downtown take on traditional Zulu garb, his bare chest sparkling with glitter, Akim Ndlovu, aka Akim Funk Buddha, begins “Amazulu” by pinning his heart on his (absent) sleeve. As collaborators stamp and chant around him, the diminutive and magnetic dancer/throat-singer/beat-boxer/poet exhorts his audience to remember that “dance is the world’s most important weapon; use it wisely.”

If dance is indeed a weapon, Akim Funk Buddha is some kind of delightful drunken master. His loosely constructed “hip-hop circus” at La MaMa employs enough varying traditions to send a reviewer scurrying back to his press packet. The rotating cast includes beat boxers, rappers, dancers, singers, martial artists, and B-boys. The music is provided by members of the ensemble – what instruments get played apparently depends on who’s there that night.

In front of projected urban scenes and graffiti art, the evening unfolds in a flowing, episodic series of acts. In one virtuosic duet, a tea ceremony sets the stage for a playful battle between Funk Buddha and Kazuma Motomura that mixes martial arts and body-popping. In another sequence, a startlingly convincing “baby” Funk Buddha coos into the mike as he discovers beat-boxing by rattling a can of spray paint and imitating the sound. When Zhisheng Zhan leaps up from the audience to play his (pretty amazing) Chinese mouth organ over Funk Buddha’s vocal percussion, the whole thing has a feeling of “Hey! Look who’s here!”

This informality makes for a slightly tenuous first few minutes – one wonders if the loosely grafted dance, music, and spoken word elements will crystallize into something holistic, or if the evening will remain “interesting.” Buddha, though prodigiously multitalented, lacks the specific spoken word power of a Marc Bamuthi Joseph or Will Power; in speech he is simply calm, inviting, and conversational.

Once the inventive interplay between the various artists gets rolling, however, this relaxed quality becomes invaluable and a thematic unity presents itself. As in any well-orchestrated circus, a rhythm emerges, accelerating and peaking as the evening draws to a close.

What makes the evening so engaging, even (particularly?) for those with little or no familiarity with hip-hop, is its understatement. The dance emphasis is never on technical skill or power moves (which are abundant), but on the humor and narrative of scenario. When Funk Buddha and Pete List, a vocal percussionist/guitar-player/mime, somehow create two interweaving beats and a throat-song melody between their two sets of vocal chords, they’re not trying to amaze you. They’re doing it because it’s fun, and they want you to have fun with them.

In fact, they insist on it. Funk Buddha has created a show that successfully employs hip-hop as a mode rather than a theme. “Amazulu” creates a relationship between performer and audience that is true hiphop, and in doing so succeeds in its mission to reference the native antecedents to the modern form. The performers frequently engage the audience directly, sometimes physically, and at the end of the evening – should you be so inclined – you can get up and dance on stage.

Without calling attention to his own ability to do so, Funk Buddha has created a hip-hop show that is true to the purest aspects of the form: He mines a built-in sense of community, centered on improvisational performance of vocal and physical expression. “Amazulu” employs new forms and catchy combinations, but the inclusiveness and innate theatricality it taps into never seem to get old.

***

Sage Francis doesn’t like it easy. Since emerging in the late 1990s with a splashy underground pedigree of freestyle and battle-rap championships, the 27-year-old MC – whose new LP, “A Healthy Distrust,” is released today on Epitaph records – has simultaneously built up a loyal grassroots following and an acerbic cadre of detractors.

His first full-length album, 2002’s “Personal Journals” was touted as a new breed of emo-rap by some; others derided it as solipsistic diary reading. His follow-up, “Hope,” was far more cohesive: Working as the “Non-Prophets” with deft producer Joe Beats, Francis created a sparkling example of mid-1990s boom-bap in 2003. This should have put to rest any accusations that he was simply an art-hop MC with little interest in hip-hop’s roots, but in the meantime his self-distributed Internet and bootleg material remained in active circulation, adding to the energetic ranks of those who love or hate him.

There’s a lot to love. Throughout his career, Francis has honed a more and more mercurial flow, and “A Healthy Distrust” finds his talents in full bloom. His attention skips between politics, sex, and other existential crises with exhilarating dexterity and skill – even when you lose track of him, there is a dizzy pleasure in being pounded by his poetry. Eschewing the stark dichotomies applicable to many MC’s today – consciousness or crunk, Ph.D or posse – Francis trades aggression and education in equal measure as he raps, turns abstract metaphor into battled verse, rages with a galvanizing mix of figurative and direct language (as on “Slow Down Gandhi”).Ultimately, “A Healthy Distrust” is his most cogent lyrical statement to date; a polyrhythmic declaration of dogged intellectual independence from the conformity and consumerism he sees surrounding us all.

For his spotlight moment, Sage Francis created a difficult to contextualize LP; a mix of his past and (potential) future that eschews the hip-hop 101 direction “Hope” seemed to indicate. Most strikingly, this feels very deliberate. “A Healthy Distrust’s” title might be reflective: It turns its suspicious eye upon itself, hedging its bets with tracks that constantly contradict one another.

Francis was the first the first hip-hop artist to sign with punk-rock powerhouse Epitaph, and the label is energetically pushing this new album. Francis’s producers are a puzzling mix of old and new – including Reanimator, Alias, Dangermouse, and Sixtoo. Reanimator steps up his game remarkably: His simple kit-beats bring out the best in Francis, while his light hand with synthesizer and samples creates evocative backdrops that often carry great impact in their own right. On “Sea Lion,” Alias molds Francis’s collaboration with indie folker Will Oldham into a haunting prayer that will run aground against some listeners’ hip-hop preconceptions, while enchanting others.

Elsewhere, however, the album reverts to an older, less interesting Sage Francis sound: production steeped in sci-fi paranoia and hard-to-grapple break-beats that favor his spoken word facilities. Tracks by Sixtoo and controller 7 match Francis’s verse with hazy, ambient production – his rhythmic play becomes anti-rhythm, his lyrics either inscrutable or worthy of the “emo” tag.

It is a wonder why Francis – who meshes so well with straightforward snare/high hat beats and any accessible production – continues to consort with experimentation that seems to limit him. Whatever his reasons, “A Healthy Disstrust” provides generous fodder for both camps of the Sage Francis debate and will continue to frustrate those eager for another cohesive LP from this exceptional MC. From an artist of Francis’s complexity, maybe ambiguity is the only thing we can count on.

“Amazulu” until February 20 (66 E. 4th Street, between Second Avenue and Bowery, 212-475-7710).

Sage Francis plays The Bowery Ballroom tomorrow night (6 Delancey Street, between Bowery and Chrystie, 212-533-2111).