Mos Def
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representing YOU, the buyer.
In fact, in most cases we can negotiate for
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Mos Def Biography
Initially regarded as one of hip-hop's most promising newcomers
in the late '90s, Mos Def expanded his reach in the years to come,
establishing himself as a serious actor and also making a bid to
reshape the rap-rock genre. His artistic career began in the late '80s
as a television actor, a profession he began directly out of high
school. By the mid-'90s though, Mos Def turned to rap music as his new
profession, frustrated by how little acting paid relative to rapping.
Based in Brooklyn, he began affiliating himself with the local hip-hop
scene, appearing on tracks by such esteemed groups as De La Soul and Da
Bush Babees. Following these guest appearances and some singles for
Royalty (most notably Universal Magnetic ), Mos Def began recording
for the upstart Rawkus label. His first full-length album, Black Star
(1998), a collaboration with Talib Kweli and DJ Hi-Tek, shook the
hip-hop community, which embraced the album and spoke of a Native
Tongue revival. His solo debut, Black on Both Sides (1999), did much
the same a year later. For the most part though, Mos Def maintained a
low profile in successive years, rediscovering his passion for acting
and forming the rap-rock supergroup Black Jack Johnson.
Born in Brooklyn, Mos Def pursued the arts at a young age, excelling as
a performer. After high school, he began acting in a variety of
television roles, most notably appearing on a short-lived Bill Cosby
series in 1994, The Cosby Mysteries. He soon grew frustrated with life
as an actor and switched to rapping. Appearances on songs by De La Soul
( Big Brother Beat ) and Da Bush Babees ( S.O.S. ) -- both released in
1996 -- began Mos Def's rap career with much propulsion. A year later,
he released a single of his own for Royalty Records, Universal
Magnetic, and it created quite a stir. Soon he moved to Rawkus
Records, which was just getting off the ground at the time, and began
working on a full-length album with like-minded rapper Talib Kweli and
beat-maker DJ Hi-Tek. The resulting album, Black Star (1998), became
one of the most discussed rap albums of its time. A year later came Mos
Def's solo album, Black on Both Sides, and it inspired further
attention and praise.
Rap groups such as De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, and Brand Nubian
-- loosely known as the Native Tongue collective -- had set a precedent
years earlier for socially conscious, thoughtful rap music more likely
to celebrate Afrocentricity than gangsta culture. Yet these artists had
fallen out of favor by the late '90s as they aged. Mos Def, on the
other hand, was young and charismatic, an apparently capable and
willing heir. Thus, listeners, critics, and everyone else who had heard
Mos Def's work for Rawkus championed him as a sort of savior, a
genuine, important MC in an age of flossin' gangstas and angry thugs.
And Mos Def certainly fit the role as newly crowned king of the
new-school Native Tongue artists such as Common and Kweli. However, for
whatever reason -- the hype, the pressure, the attention -- he shied
away from the recording studio after Black on Both Sides and began
pursuing other interests.
During the early 2000s, he acted in several films (Monster's Ball,
Bamboozled, Brown Sugar, The Woodsman) and even spent some time on
Broadway (the Pulitzer Prize-winning Topdog/Underdog). He
simultaneously worked on the Black Jack Johnson project with several
iconic black musicians: keyboardist Bernie Worrell
(Parliament/Funkadelic), guitarist Dr. Know (Bad Brains), drummer Will
Calhoun (Living Colour), and bassist Doug Wimbish (the Sugarhill Gang,
Grandmaster Flash, Living Colour). This project aimed to reclaim rock
music, especially the rap-rock hybrid, from such artists as Limp Bizkit
frontman Fred Durst, who Mos Def openly despised. What made Black Jack
Johnson so anticipated though was not so much the supergroup roster of
musicians or even Mos Def himself, but rather the lack of black rock
bands. Following the demise of Living Colour, there were few, if any,
that had attained substantial success. Mos Def hoped to infuse the rock
world with his all-black band, and during the early 2000s, he performed
several small shows with his band around the New York area. In October
2004, he finally delivered a second solo album, The New Danger, which
involved Black Jack Johnson on a few tracks.
Two years later, after a few more acting roles -- including the Golden
Globe-winning Lackawanna Blues and the Emmy-winning Something the Lord
Made, both of which were made-for-television movies -- Mos Def released
his third solo album, True Magic (2006). A contract-fulfilling release
for Geffen, which had absorbed Rawkus years prior, the album trickled
out in a small run during the last week of 2006. Bizarrely, the disc
came with no artwork and was sold in a clear plastic case -- though its
single, Undeniable, did manage to grab a Grammy nomination for Best
Rap Solo Performance. Months later, Geffen re-released it with full
artwork and a slightly different track listing. ~ Jason Birchmeier, All
Music Guide
Written by Jason Birchmeier