Word: mos
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Mos Def & Talib Kweli are Black Star dropped, and the praise continues. One of my boys wrote me an e-mail message from upstate Massachussetts specifically to confess his amazement: "Yo this LP is ridiculous. Every track is plain dope. The beats are phat, the lyrics are intelligent, and yet it still has the feel of a demo." To this day I wonder how he managed to italicize using Pine...
...peep another comment from a friend of mine from Philly: "Mos Def and Kweli are my boys. Ever since I heard `Fortified Live' [that magnum opus from '96 that gave birth to the duo], Mos's singles and especially Kweli's `Manifesto' I knew that when they made an album it would blow the f-- up." Aight girl, "Fortified Live" still gives me goose epidermis and Kweli's "Manifesto" remains one of hip-hop's all-time classics, but must you curse...
True indeed, oddly enough; and Black Star's is no exception. But this time I agree, five mics were not due. One of my roommates made one reason clear: "Why Mos Def gotta sing so much?" The revamped 1-2-3 hook in "RE:Definition" tries to be too Sinatra--just as annoying as his uh-uh-uh's in "Hater Players"--"plus," I always add, "the beat sounds Casio." "Yo I don't know about this `Children's Story' remake," I heard someone else complain; "he didn't do jack with it." "And what about his monotone formats...
Alright, alright, so Mos Def should stick to rhyming. So the beat to "Hater Players" doesn't live up to its stellar rhymes. So you heard about five of the 13 tracks this summer a month or two before the album was scheduled to drop. Do you like the album though? "Oh no doubt, this the tightest sh--out this year." There you go cursing again, b. "It's just that dope, and that important...
...delivery must get pushed; intelligent lyrics must be praised in the very lyrics--and if you can explain why all this is imperative, even better. So thank you, oh cosmic structure of things, for letting Rawkus Records exist and publicize a group like Black Star so effectively. Thank you, Mos Def and Kweli, for letting us know that "life without thought is just death in disguise;" and that even battle rhymes like "you stoppin us? that's just preposterous like an androgenous mysoginist" can equip us against the extinction we hip-hop fanatics frantically fear...