"Without makeup you're beautiful, whatcha you need to paint the next face for, we're not dealin with the European standard of beauty tonight, turn off the TV, put the magazine away"
Before Mos Def was a movie star and long before he was Yasiin Bey he was a black star. Long before Jay Z said "If skills sold, truth be told, I'd probably be, lyrically Talib Kweli," Kweli was already a black star. Black Star is a combination of two of the most potent MCs in history. With a single album and a few collaborations through the years Mos Def and Talib Kweli solidified themselves as the best alliance in hip hop, because they aren't a duo. They make that clear, alliance, not duo.
By alliance what they mean is they aren't a group, they're two solo artist that teamed together to creates some great music, and they truly did. The album does take aim at a lot of social issues, as both artist are known for but it's so much more. Both are known for providing in depth views of these issues in their own music, so Black Star is something different. Black Star is a celebration of everything black. For starters the introduction is played on piano by Weldon Irvine, the same man who wrote "To Be Young, Gifted and Black," for Nina Simone. That is one hell of a cosign. Mos Def and Talib Kweli were most definitely young gifted and black when his was released
It's well earned too. The album doesn't feature the standard 90s confrontational rap beats. Instead it makes use of samples from the previous decade. The 80s samples are backed with some smooth jazz. Usually when it comes to a rap duo there's either two guys who flow back and forth for a verse, two verses total, or two verses then each have half 8 bars. Mos Def and Talib Kweli do all of the above, however they're an alliance not a duo. Some tracks can easily be classified as Talib Kweli featuring Mos Def and vice versa. Either way it's truly potent and extreamly rare for two people to be on the same wave length throughout.
The track "Astronomy (8th Light)," tells us everything black star is by telling us what black is and what a star is. Some examples of what black is "Black like my baby girl's stare, black like the veil that the muslimina wear, black like the planet that they fear." Just in case you want to question their blackness they give you some examples of what they're blacker than like "Blacker than the nighttime sky of bed stuy in July, blacker than the seed in the blackberry pie, blacker than the middle of my eye." There's also some lines that are a little darker like "black like the perception of who on welfare." Sadly there is a perception that black people are all on welfare when in reality the recipients of welfare have hovered around 60 - 66 percent white. It's a perception, but a wrong one. The thing is, everything they name as black in this song is something positive. It paints a picture of black people in bad situations from slavery to poverty but also reminds us that black is beautiful.
The reason the track is also called "8th Light," is really cool from a nerdy viewpoint. The basic idea is that there are seven colors of light, the rainbow; red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. The 8th light is usually considered to be the white light that splits apart to make these colors. However they flip this theory on it's head. Rapping back and forth they state "You know the light, go from the dark, the other way is ass backwards, it's absurd." We all know if you mix the 7 colors you come out with black. You can't mix any colors to get white. They're stating that black is the real 8th light when split apart forms the other seven. It's a cool theory.
"Definition," is a track that almost begs people, especially rappers to stop the violence. It's a track dedicated to The Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac. Warning that selling drugs just leads to distrust and the one you think is your friend will kill you in the end. One thing that really stands out is the nods to classic tracks from Boogie Down Productions, most known for sparking the career of KRS-One. The beat is stripped down and reworking of "The P Is Free," that song urges people to have sex instead of smoke crack and is most notable for the hook being "The pussy is free because crack cost money." The second is the legendary "Stop The Violence." Similar to "Definition," it's a track that aimed to cause an end to the violence, the hook is a reworked version of the hook from the original track. The last track is "The Bridge Is Over," because Mos Def and Talib Kweli are from Brooklyn and they can't help but remind people that the bridge is still over.
"RE: Definition," is a flip on the previous track. Now the two are taking a look at more issues than just violence. Talib reminds people "still more blacks is dying, cause they live and they trying
"How to Make a Slave" by Willie Lynch is still applying." He's alluding to the Willie Lynch speech that told slave owners how to break the spirit of blacks and turn them against each other by exploiting differences and favoring some over the others, for example, lighter slaves were treated better.
Long before Andre 3000 said "how come the only girls that are thought of are the light ones,well tonight then, we gonna do it for the dark ones," Black Star was writing songs about the beauty of darker women. The track "Brown Skin Lady," is one that was really needed and still is. Rarely are darker skinned women held up as the standard of beauty. We see people make jokes about them looking like roaches on twitter, youtube and everywhere else, because they think it's funny. This eats away at their confidence and they stop viewing themselves as beautiful. Black Star realized this and penned a song strictly for the darker ladies, the brown skin lady.
The opening to the track comes from the movie Chameleon Street where Sam Jackson tells another black man how stupid he is to hold up the idea of light skinned women being the most beautiful as well as the idea of good hair. Talib states "Coppertone owe you copyright infringement pay, you been this tan since way back in the day, it's like I'm standing there you know appreciating God's design, and then you showed up, it's like you read my mind." Coppertone creates sun tan creams so white women can get that bronze tan, a little color. The thing is, black women aren't held up as beautiful, but people are getting tans so they can fake the pigmentation they were born with. Coppertone owes black women some money for helping white women fake it. Talib even goes on to let us know this messes with dark skinned brother too with the line "I don't get many compliments, but I am confident," because it is important to be confident when you're constantly told you aren't beautiful. Through all the metaphors Talib goes on to put it simply:
"It's how it seems, you make me wanna ride the Coltrane to A Love Supreme, my brown lady, creates environments, for happy brown babies, I know it sounds crazy, but your skin's the inspiration for cocoa butter, you provoke a brother we should get to know one another, I discover when I bring you through my people say true, all I can say, its all praise due I thank you God for a beauty like you"He's just giving darker women the praise that is long over due. On the outro of the track Mos Def sings about his love of darker women while Talib continues to preach about how the European Standard of beauty is stupid. "Baby, what you mean you don't think you look good? You know what some people put themselves through to look just like you?" He just wants to let them know despite the fact that the European standard is held up so high people do all kinds of things to darken their skin, wear fros, have thicker lips, wider hips and everything else that makes black women so perfect.
"K.O.S. (Determination)," is one of those tracks that can be defined as a Talib Kweli track. K.O.S. stands for Knowledge of Self. It's a track about knowing who you are as black person. He starts by calling out rappers who focus on glorifying violence in their lyrics "so many emcees focusin on black people extermination, we keep it balanced with that knowledge of self, determination." Violence only breeds more violence and Talib is not in the business of breeding more violence. He also doesn't think rap music should be in that business either because that's not where it started. It started as a way for black people to simply be heard and express themselves. He goes on to state "no question, being a black man is demanding." He goes on to ask people to open their eyes and learn about their surrounding. "At exactly which point do you start to realize, that life without knowledge is, death in disguise?" He's saying that if you keep trying to be some stereotype you aren't it'll just cause you to die slowly because you're betraying who you really are. He continues to remind us "The most important time in history is, now, the present," because it is. We can keep talking about how slavery held us back for 400 years, Jim Crow or Ronald Reagan pumping crack into black neighborhoods, but I'd much rather talk about how these police keep killing us, vigilantes are able to take our lives with immunity and everything else facing us right now. The past sucks, but it's done and can't be changed, we can still change the future.
The track "Yo Yeah," just features Black Star saying yo and yeah while three poems are read about being black. The first is a little girl reading a poem about how black is beautiful. The second is an older woman reading about Pan-Africanism, or going back to Africa. The third is an old man reading about how all the other black people are brainwashed. It's funny because he doesn't realize he only moves when he's told to. It's similar to people who preach respectability politics.
"Thieves In The Night," is a track based on the book, The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison. It's a track that urges people to throw away stereotypes and be themselves. It also points out how black people are the most accepting other despite all the things that we've been through. It also states that people often confuse things for others. The hook states:
"Not strong, only aggressive, not free, we only licensed, not compassionate, only polite, now who the nicest, not good but well behaved, chasing after death, so we can call ourselves brave, still living like mental slaves, hiding like thieves in the night from life illusions of oasis making you look twice, hiding like thieves in the night from life, illusions of oasis making you look twice"Men are always told to be strong, yet a lot of men seem to think being aggressive is the only way to be strong.Yeah, you can beat people up all day, but are you strong enough to provide for your family? As black people, we're not really free. Black districts votes rarely count do to gerrymandering, black schools are still separate and not equal, and as we've seen lately we can't even go swimming. We're given some freedoms but there are still things black people can't get away with. People are often praised for the compassion and usually it's just because they're polite. Just because some one follows all the rules and behaves well, it doesn't mean they're a good person, a lot of times they're the worst. Because of that we hide like thieves in the night, an old bible reference for a tragedy that goes unseen. It isn't seen but because of these things, we're slowly dying and that's a tragedy.
The album does a lot to show people as many of the problems facing the black community as possible. It does get depressing in parts. However the real key is that Mos Def and Talib Kweli are not the only black stars. The album dedicates a large amount of time to telling us how important it is to love not only being black, but who we are as individuals. It lets us know that the black community isn't a monolith, we're all different people brought together with a common bond, but we are different and we should embrace our differences as well, so they don't drive us apart. Black Star simply wants to prove that the Boris Gardiner song is true, "Every Nigger Is A Star."
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You can hear Darrell on the CP Time and Powerbomb Jutsu podcasts. He also plays classic arcade games on The Cabinet
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