Black Star

No rapper has articulated ethical conflict between Hip Hop as art and Hip Hop as commerce as concisely as Jay-Z on "Moment Of Clarity": "If skills sold, truth to be told, I'd probably be, lyrically Talib Kweli." Simply as that: dumb down or stay true. It's the internal dilemma every rapper faces when he or she steps to the mic. But Kweli and his rhyme partner Mos Def made a conscious effort never to barter their artistic souls for the sake of dollars. Hip Hop's renegade scholars not only kept heads bopping but also kept them thinking. Even hardcore rappers like Jadakiss The LOX member who has praised Mos Def for giving us the streets and wisdom in his raps could get down with the revolution. Being Hip Hop's newspaper on record was always the plan when Mos and Talib united as Black Star in the late '90s, a refreshing glass of ice-cold water at a time when Hip Hop was all glitz or grime. Over urgent boom-bap beats, the pair pushed for social and individual responsibility and knowledge over materialism on their classic 1998 Rawkus Records debut, Mos Def And Talib Kweli Are Black Star. The point: intelligence is cool. Like an Angelou poem on wax, their poetic rhymes were the constant mirror of self-reflection in Hip Hop. Mos Def's 1999 solo debut, Black On Both Sides, is among the CDs Lupe Fiasco pops in when he needs re-inspiration. Explaining that Mos made it cool to be an individual in Hip Hop, the Chicago rapper shares both the same Islamic faith and the ideology that there's a purpose to rapping outside of its mere retail value. Mos Def's rap career jumped off in 1994 when he was a member of the trio Urban Thermo Dynamics. He cut his teeth recording with the Long Island, New York, rap group De La Soul before dropping his debut solo single, "Universal Magnetic," in '96. With Kweli having built a solid reputation as one-half of Reflection Eternal alongside producer Hi-Tek, Black Star was ripe to become an underground sensation. When Mos and Kweli spoke, ears perked up to the verbally exhaustive sounds of "Respiration" and their biggest single, "Definition," on which Kweli's practically 100-words-per-minute flow was the perfect complement to his partner's spitfire boasts. Both Mos and Kweli were thinkers who, like the Black Power movement manifested, have been a siren for political awareness to rappers like Bun B. The Houston veteran applauded the pair for striving to be an information highway for Hip Hop fans. Kweli had professors for parents and a knack for appealing to the everyday concerns of the 9-to-5er, something Mos Def appreciated in his partner, stating that the struggles Kweli depicted were those experienced by young folks listening to his message through tiny earbuds. His 2004 sophomore solo album, The Beautiful Struggle, was a testament to that fact. Of course, you could say the same for Mos, whom Philly DJ/rapper Bahamdia once deemed "the second coming of Q-Tip.