Over the course of 1997, Firm Circulate turned a minor sensation, its singles fixtures on late-night radio, its cassette handed furtively round faculty campuses. It signaled one thing critical and subterranean—one thing El-P would go on to articulate much more absolutely, and extra apocalyptically by way of his personal indie imprint, Definitive Jux—however it was too knotty, caustic, and unconcerned with biographical mythmaking to mount a critical problem to the then shiny-suit establishment. For that, Myer, Brater, and Murdoch would flip to somebody much more assured of his personal place in a hip-hop lineage.
Earlier than he signed to Rawkus, Mos Def had appeared on Stakes Is Excessive, the 1996 De La Soul album that turned a type of talisman of classicist revivalism. By way of his personal solo debut, 1997’s “Common Magnetic,” and his different appearances on Soundbombing, Rawkus’ compilation mixtape from the identical yr, he instantly established himself as the can’t-miss expertise from his era: technically virtuosic however defiantly syncretic, weaving threads of hip-hop tradition from the early ’80s into one thing daring and poetic and rhythmically creative. (As with Massive, there may be actually no proof of Mos, now Yasiin Bey, being lower than a masterful musician: from the earliest demos, the syllables fall simply so.) So when, in 1998, Rawkus issued his joint album with one other Brooklyn MC, Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star, it was an precise gauntlet thrown.
Black Star was launched on the identical day, in September of that yr, as Jay’s Vol. 2… Arduous Knock Life and A Tribe Referred to as Quest’s The Love Motion (and, down in Atlanta, OutKast’s Aquemini). “Definition” and “Respiration” weren’t going to vie with “Cash Money Hoes” and “Can I Get A…” for airtime on Scorching 97, however Rawkus’ new distribution take care of business big Precedence—mixed with the underground rallying round Mos as its subsequent nice hope—made it sincerely impactful.
It was additionally forged, for causes each out and in of its management, as a direct, even militant counterpoint to the Jays and Puffs of the world. In a 2011 interview with Pitchfork, Questlove remembers an version of the vaunted Lyricist Lounge efficiency collection from 1997, through which Mos rapped his model of Slick Rick’s “Youngsters’s Story,” which might finally seem on Black Star. The place Rick’s unique was a pulp-crime basic, Mos turned the track right into a parable: The clear Puff stand-in, bastardizing the artform for revenue, finally ends up riddled with bullets. Questlove recollects whooping, hollering, high-fiving the chums he was with; he additionally recollects Puff, “14 deep with dudes wearing all-black,” glowering at him from the periphery.