Geffen Records acquired Rawkus Records in January 2002, and his second solo album, The New Danger, was released in October 2004. He also contributed to the Scritti Politti album Anomie & Bonhomie around this period. Fat Booty charted as a single, while the album peaked at #25 on the Billboard 200. Mos Def released his self-titled debut album, Black, on Both Sides on Rawkus in October 1999. "Oh No," "Definition," and "Respiration" are just a few of Mos Def's most popular songs. According to the editors of, he is the 14th greatest rapper in the genre's history on their "50 Greatest MC's of Our Time (1987-2007)" list. His first novel, The New Danger (2004), was followed by True Magic (2006) and The Ecstatic (2007). He was signed to Rawkus Records and released his solo debut, Black on Both Sides, in 1999, which was a critical and commercial success. He went on to form the duo Black Star with fellow Brooklyn-based rapper Talib Kweli, and the two of them published their self-titled first album in 1998, which has since gone platinum. After that, he appeared on Da Bush Babees and De La Soul's albums and later on his albums. Bey began his hip-hop career in 1994 when he and his siblings formed the short-lived rap group Urban Thermo Dynamics (U.T.D.). So I’ve put together a list of ten of the best Black Star songs from across both artists’ catalogs to remind listeners what they’ve been missing out on, and hopefully, the level of quality they have to look forward to when the Brooklyn duo reunites.Mos Def is a rapper, musician, actor, and social activist from the United States. While the reason for excitement may be self-evident to some, for others, perhaps a refresher course is needed. Those fans have plenty of reason for excitement now, though, as group member Mos Def, now known as Yasiin Bey, made a surprise appearance at a Madlib DJ set at the Ogden Theater in Denver on Saturday, announcing that the pair has been working on a new project on the eve of their first album’s 20th anniversary. While the group has not been active since their last tour in 2015, only making sparse special appearances, and hasn’t released an album since their 1998 debut, they remain a favorite of fans of alternative, heady rap. Clad in military jackets and cowrie shells, they brought their red, black, and green ethos to a hip-hop audience yearning for an alternative to shiny suits and blinged-out Rolexes. They rejected the “get money by any means” ethos of Puff Daddy (now better known as Sean “Diddy” Combs - aka Love), Jay-Z, and their ilk, to focus on the social - and socialist - teachings of James Baldwin, Richard Wright, and the Black Panthers. Cole.įunded by legendary indie rap label Rawkus Records and fueled by the righteous indignation of educated, well-read Black collegiate idealism (the duo purchased Nkiru Bookstore, cited as the oldest African-American bookstore in Brooklyn, New York, in 1998), their debut album, Mos Def And Talib Kweli Are Black Star stood in stark contrast to the era’s ultra-jiggy leanings. With a combination of Afrocentric wisdom, esoteric literary references, and street-savvy wordplay, Black Star changed the direction of subterranean, socially-conscious rap, a precursor to the modern woke stylings of today’s rap favorites like Kendrick Lamar and J. Mos Def, a recently-established associate of the former Native Tongues crew, and Talib Kweli, an underground battle rapper making waves on New York’s indie rap scene, united to form Black Star, a duo who laid the blueprint for the next phase of Black power rap.
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