Cengocengo

Even without Blackstar Mos Def stays ill.

The album opens up with Mos Def speaking to us about the state of hiphop is corrolated to the state of the people, as are many other things in life. If people are doing good, Hip Hop is doing good, if people are doing bad, Hip Hop is doing bad. He further goes into this on the chorus where he tells everyone to basically do good in their lives and not fall for things such as materialism and greed. This is done over beautiful live instrumentation that ... read more

Mos Def & Talib Kweli are Black Star. The brain of Hip Hop.

The album opens op with a short intro letting us know the task Mos Def and Talib Kweli have put on themselves, which they will fulfill throughout the albums runtime. They are documentarians who will educate your mind. Using both the past and present to inform you.

Astronomy(8th light) is a message about bringing out how positive “black” can be, usually being used in a negative environment. While also asking the ... read more

Baba-baba-baba-baba.

We start the Mos Def deep dive, and we start of with…
UTD, more specifically their album Manifest destiny. The album title will play a theme in a few songs we will get into shortly. The first things that stood out to me when playing this record were the fun energy that the group had. They really didn’t “want” to make it a boring listen. This was also my first introduction to Ces and DCQ, both of which did a good job, Ces especially. Mos Def sounds ... read more

Just not quite the same.

This is the follow up album by Masta Ace and Marco Polo. There really isn’t much to say about this project except that it’s solid. The here isn’t really anything that stands out that much and Ace’s voice doesn’t sound as good as on his previous projects, I also prefer the beats from a Breukelen story. The features are good, especially Blu, and the project thankfully doesn’t overstay its welcome. Overall not really that special and ... read more