Black Star - Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star

"I love rockin' tracks like John Coltrane love Naima," and the tracks on Mos Def and Talib Kweli's 1998 Black Star album are about as good as they get. I don't want to talk about this album so much as I just want to force you to listen to it over and over again. I can't do that, but I can give you some strong words about this album. Okay, here goes: It's really good. The end.




No, just kidding. I have a little bit more to say, but I will keep it short. That's mostly because if I went through and listed off every great thing about this album, I'd be writing all day. "From the first to the last of it deliver is passionate, the whole and not the half of it, vocab and not the math of it" spits Mos Def in his first verse in "Definition." That about sums it up. This album is all rhythm and all killer wordplay from beginning to end.

When I say "killer wordplay," I don't think I'm exaggerating; on average, upwards of 10 people are killed or injured each year by the power behind these rhymes. Mos and Kweli bring modern poets to shame with their lyrics. Every song is packed with the kind of powerful metaphors and intense cultural references that are amplified in front of a hip-hop beat. Talib Kweli's lines are smooth and calculated, and when he gets a verse he gives the kind of lines that you suspect he's been thinking about his entire life. When Mos gets his word in, he makes the song his playground. His flow transforms from measure to measure and every line he drops is clever and creative because of it. Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star is filled with braggadocio, but the duo never comes across as cocky. It's the kind of confidence that is earned with achievement, and Mos and Talib achieved something great with this album.

Mos and Kweli take their Brooklyn surroundings and make them seem like the battleground of some grand war. Not a war of drugs or gangs, the kind of wars that appear in a lot of other rap/hip-hop albums, but a war on the conscious mind. A war on the way we think about hip-hop. A war on the way we think about women and a war and the way we think about ourselves. Black Star is a movement and Mos and Kweli are the revolutionaries. But don't let that intimidate you. Black Star is still a fun album, and you'll come out of your first listen with a plethora of great one liners ingrained in your memory. Or maybe that's just me, because I'm having a hard time not adding in Black Star quotes after every other sentence.


Check out "Definition," and if you like what you hear, I urge you to get your hands on the rest of the album.

Until next time, remember: "Stop actin' like a bitch already, be a visionary and maybe you can see your name in the column of obituaries."

-Kane