Most great rap duos operate on a yin and yang basis. Andre 3000 was the “eccentric” one in Outkast while Big Boi was the suave, smooth talker. Raekwon was a blisteringly direct rapper while Ghostface Killah indulged in absurdity. But this principle can’t fully apply to Mos Def and Talib Kweli in Black Star. Kweli and the rapper now known as Yasiin Bey are both equally scathing in their critiques of modern excess and U.S. imperialism. The only core difference is that Bey could sing and/or make songs for the ladies too.
Given their impeccable chemistry, it feels like they’ve known each other forever. But how did they get together to form Black Star in the first place? In a 2009 interview with SPIN Magazine, Mos Def shared some of the lore behind them formally creating a duo. At the time, Kweli was performing at open mic nights and working a regular 9-5. Meanwhile, the Brooklyn multi-hyphenate was too disillusioned to do his debut rap album.
All of a sudden, a bright idea popped into his mind while buying an album: Why don’t they just make a record together?
Mos Def Creates Black Star With Talib Kweli After Buying a Jazz Album
“I’d done this 12-inch for [New York indie label] Rawkus, and they wanted me to do an album, and I didn’t want to, after the Payday experience. But me and Kweli were hanging pretty tough. He was working at [Brooklyn bookstore] Nkiru, doing open mics, and he was dope. He had this whole crew, and they were superscientifical. Their rhymes were dense, talking about Egyptology, these guys had the big brains!” Mos Def quipped.
“Then one day, I bought this jazz album, I think it was Milt Jackson and Lionel Hampton, and I said, ‘That’s it, we need to do a collabo like jazz, a one-album deal,’” the “Ms. Fat Booty” MC continued. “I was big on being sovereign and free. And they gave us, like, $80,000, $90,000 to record, which was more money than we’d ever seen at one time. I’d just had my first child, and the goal wasn’t about trying to become a star, it was to become a real, working artist.”
Even with their working-class mindset, Mos Def was never explicitly opposed to artists rapping about luxuries or street life. Ultimately, he told SPIN it just wasn’t his prerogative and didn’t want to risk glorifying that lifestyle. “Reckless capitalism kills Black people,” Yasiin Bey stressed. “This music has given young people in our community a dangerous road map, and at the end of it, if you don’t end up in some sort of trouble or grave, you may just end up a f*ckin’ nut.”
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