Mos Def - Emcee Extroardinare
February 15, 2008
I showed you Mos Def as an actor. Now here are 10 music vids that show off his amazing emcee skills.
I was thinkin to myself: How could I show ten Michel Gondry music vids, but none from Mos Def?
So here you go. I’ve picked a selection of ten songs + a sweet bonus clip that are enjoyable and impressive in many different ways. Mos Def is obviously a multi-talented human being, and these songs show off his diverse skills on the mic.
You’ve got Black Star joints, a dark and grimey song from Bamboozled, Mos crooning his heart out, live and on stage, cruisin’ with Dave Chappelle, and more…
Definition (w/ Talib Kweli - Black Star classic)
Speed Law (BRILLIANT slideshow action!!!)
Blak Iz Blak (Mau Maus feat. Mums [Oz], Serch [3rd Bass], Canibus, and others)
From Bamboozled - Canibus AKA Mo Black effin’ RIPS it!
Ms. Fat Booty (The coolest “club song” ever?)
Travellin’ Man (w/ DJ Honda - Mos Def singin’ at his finest)
Sunshine (Live - WE are the rock)
Pornographic Content (from Def Poetry - Wrote it when he was in a hotel)
What is Beef? (w/ Talib Kweli - from Chappelle’s Show)
Katrina Klap (Dollar Day - Uses Juvenile’s “Nolia Clap” beat)
Close Edge (from Chappelle’s Show - Watch for Dave’s face at 1:38!)
What’s interesting is that I didn’t consider Mos Def to be one my current Top 5 Emcees before I did this, but I doubt I can name ONE with a nicer and more diverse selection of music vids. Perhaps my expectations for him are too high tho, because I want him to show me how powerful one voice really can be.
I think he could be the Barack Obama of hip-hop, I really do. From mainstream guys like Kanye West and Eminem to lesser-known cats like Sage Francis and Immortal Technique, I don’t think ANYONE in hip-hop has the potential power to be a catalyst for change quite like Mos Def (altho Sage is close and Saul Williams will want a say in that).
Watch this clip with him and Cornel West (one of my favorite scholars) on Bill Maher’s show to see what I’m talking about (and don’t let the “moon landing” stuff stray you away from what Mos is really saying here).
BONUS: Mos Def & Cornel West on Real Time with Bill Maher
How do y’all feel about Mos Def?
Mos used to be the man, but he just needs to stick to rapping. He was on some fake Andre 3000 garbage on his last album. And, three stacks needs to get back to rapping himself. what the hell is he doing? He was one of the top 5 MC’s of all time before he jumped on a space ship and came back dressing, and sounding, like he landed on Jupiter.
Yeah, I downloaded a couple songs off his last album and wasn’t feeling them. And then his album before, “The New Danger,” I admired for it’s uniqueness, but didn’t think it was that great. I guess that’s why I don’t consider him one of my top current emcee’s.
Many hip-hop purists always talk about the Black Star album as being a classic, but I actually prefer his Black on Both Sides album. I think that’s Mos Def at his finest. I hope his next album sounds more like that…
black on both sides is great, but so is the blackstar album. I’m assuming that if we brough up Nas right now you would say that It was Written is better than illmatic… huh?
No way - ILLMATIC is a CLASSIC that can’t be effed with!
I also didn’t like how “If I Ruled the World” was a big hit for Nas when he was just biting Kurtis Blow’s 1985 OG version. Have you heard that? I can upload it if you want.
Sampling, and rewriting is part of hiphop. Nas did that in a classy way, he’s the type of dude that loves and respects hiphop. He always pays homage to his predeccesors, and he truly respects them and the art. I don’t have a problem with a dude like that, it’s cats like Cassidy that steal lines and try to play them off like their that bothers me, and Ja Rule’s remake of pain didn’t sit well with me either.
I love IWW though. A lot of people say it’s better because “it plays better today,” which I can understand. the beats are more modern, but it’s because people don’t really listen to the lyrics. Nas is so raw, and his passion and hunger can be felt on every bar. Like he says, he spent 18 years crafting that album, and you can tell. The impact it had and everything too, he changed the game with that album and paved the way for mobb deep, jay, big, everyone.
I see Mos Def winning an Oscar one day. He’s just an unbelievable actor. His cameos/supporting roles in Monster’s Ball, Bamboozled, and the Woodsman- especially the Woodsman- are three of the best I’ve ever seen.
I agree with Evil E — Black on Both Sides is a great album, and it’s better than the Black Star Album, which had a few throwaway tracks. I saw Mos Def at a Rocksteady show in NYC in ‘96, and he was just there with De La to kick his verse on the “Big Brother Beat” song. It was one of the best live single-song performances I have ever seen.
I can’t believe no one has mentioned the Speed Law video yet!!!
The black star album was ok but not as great. Talib was still raw. Talib got better on the Reflection Eternal album. If they made a album now oh that would be nice. Alot of people did not like Mos Def’s last album I thought it was ok. He tried to mix it up. Speed law is one of my favorite mos def songs. Mathmatics also. Soundbombing 2 he has a song called Crosstown Beef pretty tight. Alot of people don’t like this one but Soundbombing 3 Freak Daddy that was a tight record. Travelin Man is that a Janis Joplin sample or Joni Mitchell? Also Mos Def and the Roots Double Trouble is one my favorite hip hop records of all time.
If you like Speed Law, you HAD to have gotten a kick out of that slideshow, yeah?
Good call on Double Trouble with the Roots! I haven’t listened to Things Fall Apart in a long time, but it’s probably my favorite Roots album (I’ll put it in my car rotation now to verify). I like the rawness of Illadelph Halflife (’96) and the the uniqueness of Phrenology (’02), but Things Fall Apart (’99) is the best of both worlds for me.
Speaking of “Things Fall Apart,” has anyone read the book by Chinua Achebe that they named the album after? It was perhaps the most memorable book that I read my freshman year in college.
Notice how that went: Mos Def > Double Trouble > the Roots > Things Fall Apart album > Things Fall Apart book?
I love it when conversations bounce around like this!
“Things Fall Apart,” by Chinua Achebe
never read it…whats it about?
It’s about some dude named Okonkwo who lives in a villiage in Nigeria. His father is considered lazy by almost everyone so Okonkwo basically spends his entire life working hard to be well-respected by his tribe. He becomes a very imposing figure, but still lives in fear in some respects. In the end, you see how “Things fall apart…”
I prefer Yeats’ poem from “The Second Coming” the novel by Achebe:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of “Spiritus Mundi”
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
“I haven’t listened to Things Fall Apart in a long time, but it’s probably my favorite Roots album (I’ll put it in my car rotation now to verify). I like the rawness of Illadelph Halflife (’96) and the the uniqueness of Phrenology (’02), but Things Fall Apart (’99) is the best of both worlds for me.”
I take back what I said after listening to all 3 albums recently. Illadelph Halflife is still my favorite Roots album hands down. I forgot how boring the first half of Things Fall Apart is, while Illadelph is a much more complete album, and like I said before, so RAW and organic.
Halflife just gets me so HYPED UP!
But we can talk about the Roots later…
Okay.
Yeats doesn’t get me hyped up, I just like the poem.