Hip-hop was becoming more single-minded in ‘98, making way for solo acts with albums chocked full of potential radio jams.
The merger of the mighty Mos Def and Talib Kweli put the focus back on making a quality album with social and creative resonance from top to bottom.
‘Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star’ was so highly anticipated following the release of single “Definition”.
Produced by Hi-Tek, it blew the dust off of boom-bap, giving it a fresh coat of dopeness. Underground diggers who thought they could name every Mos and Kweli bone got a major reintroduction.
The pair continued to reintroduce themselves throughout. Every track felt fresh. Take Kweli’s opening lines on the Shawn J. Period-produced “Hater Players” for instance: Though he snaps throughout the album, no one had any idea Kweli could come off that hard.
Mos Def’s reinterpretation of Slick Rick’s bedtime-story-rhyme “Children’s Story” (“Knock out the box, Mos…”) is virtually impossible to not play repeatedly and can’t be compared to any other rhyme on here.
Where “Definition” was a fundamental’s future, “Brown Skin Lady” was retro soul, like a sexy score from a blacksploitation film.
If you can, name another song on this album with a hook like “Thieves in the Night”.
With an assist from Common, they each exhale truth about the struggles of current times on the dreary “Respiration”. Unforgettable. |THIS.
[By Mr. Joe Walker]
