Brooklyn is the birthplace of two of my personal favorite rappers, Talib Kweli and Mos Def. They each have their own unique style and flow, and both are intelligent, clever and talented MC’s.
In the late 90’s, Mos Def's partnership with Kweli as the hip-hop group Black Star produced an album that is definitely a classic, but to me it’s his solo effort “Black On Both Sides” that fully displays his brilliance. Released in 1999, “Black On Both Sides” was the solo debut of Mos Def, and with 17 tracks, was an epic piece of hip-hop.
The size and scale of the album give it a novelistic feel, with each track acting as a chapter. But unlike most albums with that many tracks, there are no lame skits or interludes at all. It’s 71 minutes and 21 seconds of raw hip-hop.
The album is a tightrope walk of diverse hip-hop styles and features an emphasis on live instrumentation and socially conscious lyrics. Mos Def’s poetic style and his old-school vibe of confidence blend perfectly and show that he is the rare artist that can be called a humble MC.
There are so many great tracks on this album, including "Umi Says", "Climb" and, of course, the album's breakout hit "Ms. Fat Booty", that it’s almost impossible to decide which is the best.
“Mathematics” is bar none the best-produced track on the album. Mixed by DJ Premier it features a slew of great samples that make up the song’s bridge, including Snoop Dogg's "For All My Niggaz & Bitches" and dialogue from the film “Ghostbusters”. It’s truly a unique track; it contains lyrics about various social issues and asks the listener to add them up and come to conclusions about them.
One thing that he has been able to do through his career, and especially on this track is blend socially significant lyrics with clever and witty lines. As he raps on “Mathematics”, “Yo it's 6 Million Ways to Die/From the seven deadly thrills/Eight-year olds gettin found with 9 mill's/It's 10 P.M., where your seeds at? What's the deal.”
"Love", is easily the most personal track on the album, as Mos Def spits his philosophies on the rawest of human emotion and what it can bring people to do. Listening to the track you can hear the honesty as he raps, “My folks said they was in love when they had me/I take they love they made me wit to make rhymes and beats/(Can you feel?) The raw deal, it's all wheel-driven/Contemplate the essence of beats, rhymes and living.”
“Brooklyn" is a tribute to the borough where Mos Def grew up, and is my personal favorite track on the album. The track is filled with nostalgic and illustrative lyrics and Mos Def is so skilled on the track he makes things seem effortless.
What makes the track so original and so great is that on each of the three verses he uses a different beat and style, mirroring the unique nature of Brooklyn itself in the process.
Throughout the track he name drops some of the most distinct neighborhoods as he raps, “The cats out in Starret City gettin busy/To the Hook, to the East, to the Stuy/Bushwick and Canarsie, Farragut, Fullgreen, and Marcy/My Flatbush posse, generals of armies.”
On “Rock N Roll” Mos Def shows that he isn’t just a hip-hop fan, he’s a music fan. He proves his music IQ is above and beyond most other rappers as he name-drops such legendary musicians as John Coltane, Elvis Pressley, Jimi Hendrix and John Lee Hooker.
He also proves that “Rock N Roll” is no run-of-the-mill track when the beat suddenly changes and a ‘punk rock’ sound drops in and he takes on the screaming punk voice and raps: “Get your punk ass up!/Elvis Presley ain’t got no soul/Jimi Hendrix is rock and roll/You may dig on the Rolling Stones/But everything they did they stole.” in retrospect, the track serves as foreshadowing for his next album, the rock-oriented "The New Danger".
Since his professional debut as Black Star, Mos Def has shown he is one of the most intelligent and culturally relevant rappers in the industry.
"Black on Both Sides" is a complex and deeply personal project, and it is Mos Def’s crowing achievement. Although it may not come to mind right away when listing the best hip-hop albums of all time, it is undoubtedly a classic.
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