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Mos Def For Dummies: A Look Back At The Career Of One Of NY's Finest
By
Scott Heins
Published Jan 21, 2016
Modified Jan 21, 2016
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By
Scott Heins
Published Jan 21, 2016
Modified Jan 21, 2016
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It's been a strange, tumultuous week for Yasiin Bey, the talented Brooklyn-born rapper who used to go by the name Mos Def. Having overstayed a tourist visa granted to him by South Africa in 2013, Bey/Def was arrested last Friday in Cape Town when he tried to board a flight to Ethiopia using something called a World Passport. A representative confirmed that he was detained for at least two days, and the BBC reports that he and his family have less than two weeks to leave the country.
Earlier this week, the whole plot thickened. In a message posted to Kanye West's own website, Mos Def spoke out in candid tones about his arrest, personal politics, and career prospects. "I’m retiring from the music recording industry as it is currently assembled today. And also from Hollywood effective immediately," the MC said. "I’ll be releasing my final album this year, and that’s that. Peace to all, fear of none."
He also stressed that he is "being prevented from leaving unjustly, unlawfully, and without any logical reason," going on to muse that South African authorities have "political reasons" for stopping, detaining, and, soon, banishing him. Still, it's the news of his total retirement from music that's sending shockwaves through the music industry. And rightfully so: Mos Def is responsible for some of the most vital and dynamic New York hip-hop ever. You can't talk about Brooklyn rap without mentioning his records, and though he may have changed his name and moved to a different continent, his skills are still very much intact. Losing Yasiin Bey would be a huge blow for hip-hop, and so it's in that spirit that we look back at the greatest musical moments of his career.
1996: De La Soul - "Big Brother Beat" ft. Mos Def
One could argue that Mos Def's career begun in 1994 with the group Urban Thermo Dynamics, but this was his proper coming-out to the world. Blending his rhymes with De La Soul, the forefathers of the jazz-sampling scene he'd later command, the 21-year-old more than held his own and made it clear that the world should expect great things. They didn't have to wait long...
1998: Black Star - "Respiration"
One of the finest hip-hop albums ever, Mos Def and Talib Kweli's collaborative Black Star LP proved that the skills of both MCs had fully matured. What's more, it re-positioned New York City, and Brooklyn specifically, as the center of the genre. Together, the Black Star duo tackled topics like drug policy, crime, crowded prisons, gentrification, greed, and self-improvement. Both Mos Def and Talib Kweli delayed their own debut solo records to concentrate on this one, and their chemistry is electric as they approach rap as if it were a history project. Black Star reimagines Toni Morrison and taps into the Black is Beautiful movement, all the while showing reverence for Marcus Garvey's Black Star shipping line.
Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star is a dense and truly brilliant work from start to finish, but it's on "Respiration," the album's second single, that the Def one delivers what's quite possibly his best verse—ever. Ensconced in brittle guitar chords, soft keys and a thumping beat, Mos Def peels back all of New York City's sales pitches to tell the real story. Here, it's worth re-visiting at length.
Tonight alive, let's describe the inscrutable The indisputable, we New York the narcotic Draped in metal and fiber optics Where mercenaries is paid to trade hot stock tips For profits, thirsty criminals take pockets Hard knuckles on the second hands of working class watches Skyscrapers is colossus, the cost of living is preposterous Stay alive, you play or die, no options,no Batman and Robin Can't tell between the cops and the robbers, they both partners, they all heartless With no conscience, back streets stay darkened [...] The shiny Apple is bruised but sweet and if you choose to eat You could lose your teeth, many crews retreat Nightly news repeat, who got shot down and locked down Spotlight to savages, NASDAQ averages My narrative rose to explain this existence Amidst the harbor lights which remain in the distance Where unbeliever hearts stay hardened
Black Star also made a music video for "Respiration," and it's a perfect greyscale portrait of construction scaffolds, steaming chimneys, rattling trains, and busy boulevards. Both Talib Kweli and the guest-featured Common deliver impressive verses of their own, but they're perfunctory compared to Mos Def's opening missive of streetcorner wisdom. "Listen hard," he seems to say, "Here is New York."
1999: "Mathematics" & "Miss Fat Booty"
It'd be foolish to pick just one song off of Mos Def's excellent debut solo LP Black on Both Sides, and we're no fools. "Mathematics" tirelessly breaks down the socio-economic statistics that hold people of color back in America and knocks you in the face with the line "My ink so hot it burn through the journal / I'm blacker than midnight on Broadway and Myrtle." On the other hand, "Ms Fat Booty" is Mos Def at his most fun as he admits being completely bowled over by Brooklyn's most beautiful woman. These two tracks capture the yin-yang of the man's rap ethos: staunch political critique alloyed with a few sly smirks.
2004: "Ghetto Rock"
After essentially conquering hip-hop with Black Star and Black On Both Sides, Mos dove deeper into acting during the early aughts, holding down film roles in Monsters Ball and The Italian Job and becoming essentially a permanent cast member of Chappelle's Show (remember that "Black Bush" sketch?). It was no surprise, then, that 2004's The New Danger sported a more varied and adventurous sound that incorporated more rock and blues into the MC's catalog. "Ghetto Rock" is the best example of that re-appropriating approach.
2009: "Supermagic"
After the misstep that was 2005's True Magic, Mos Def returned true to form in the aptly-titled "Supermagic," the opening standout track on his fourth record, The Ecstatic. It begins with Malcolm X before launching into a beat built around a wild Turkish psych-rock sample, and is all about reassuring the MC's fans that his powers are still intact, which was absolutely correct.
2012: Robert Glasper Experiment - "Black Radio" ft. Yasiin Bey
Since changing his name to Yasiin Bey, the rapper's output has been much more scattered, but jazz piano hero Robert Glasper knew just what he was doing when he tapped him to deliver vocals on "Black Radio." Seamlessly integrating his voice with the band's live performance, Bey repeats the simple refrain "It's the Yes / you are rockin with the best / You are rockin with the fresh / You are rockin with the Def" until it becomes a kind of vocal drumroll, pulsing along in step with the groove.
2015: "Sensei On The Block
Bey got plenty pissed when this unreleased new song was leaked by producer Ski Beatz, but hey, things happen. Initially labeled as a Mos Def track, "Sensei On The Block" had the music blogosphere losing its damn mind, thinking that the rapper had re-adopted his old name. That proved not to be the case, but the track is certainly right in line with his best old material.
2016: Unnamed final LP featuring Kendrick Lamar, Kanye West, Lupe Fiasco, J. Cole, + More??
Since broadcasting his retirement plans and announcing his final album, Mos Def/Yasiin Bey has already made a few mysterious posts to Instagram— images that look quite a bit like single/album art and feature some of the highest-regarded artists in hip-hop today. Is new music imminent? Does Yasiin Bey plan to end his career on a star-studded high note? It does seem like we'll be finding out, and soon.
Tagged
hip hop
Mos Def
Yasiin Bey
original
Scott Heins
Scott Heins is a freelance photo and video journalist based in New York City, and a frequent contributor to Gothamist + WNYC. His work often centers around labor rights, housing, and policing. In 2018-2019 he traveled to four states while covering a wave of public school teachers strikes, with work featured in The New York Times, The Intercept, Getty Images, Splinter, and Bloomberg Photos. Scott is a dues-paying member of the National Writers Union's Freelance Solidarity Project.
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