![]() and where my first real problems start to slide into focus. No, the word I'm more inclined to use is 'sprawling', and not particularly concerned with momentum or flow as Mos Def will slip from b-boy lyricism to storytelling and painting more of a descriptive picture to the more politically charged cuts, done with a pace that makes you expect that there's a greater level of insight between the lines. but it's also one where outside of that very specific moment in 1999, the mystique doesn't quite have the same luster, and I'd argue that nearly twenty years later, Black On Both Sides doesn't quite have the same gripping resonance, and flaws noticed even then tend to seem a bit more evident today.Īnd since I might as well dive straight into this heresy, let's talk about those flaws right off the back, the first being this album's length - and for once, I can see the justification that Black On Both Sides is indeed varied enough that it can make use of the hour-plus run time, it certainly never feels like a boring or one-dimensional listen. ![]() And yes, I won't deny that this is a really damn great album where I can hear the influence to this day. So there's a big reason I started this conversation about Black On Both Sides talking about mystique, because right from the first half dozen listens I gave this project, the more I immediately understood why it was critically beloved at the time and cemented Mos Def's influence in the scene, a sprawling project that showed Mos Def not just establishing his skills as a conscious lyricist that could cross over, but also one willing to step into genres outside of hip-hop at the time, from R&B to even hardcore punk. so let's not waste any more time, this is Black On Both Sides by Mos Def, and this is Resonators! But you can trace his mystique back to that debut album, how it left such a mark, widely hailed as one of the best hip-hop albums of the late 90s to be released. the last full, commercially released album we would get under his name Mos Def. But Mos Def had gotten ahead the year earlier winning the sort of critical acclaim that would allow weaker projects like The New Danger and True Magic to skate by before The Ecstatic would drop in 2009 to win back fans and critics. Now we've already talked about Mos Def in this series thanks to his landmark breakthrough with Talib Kweli in Black Star, but in the process both artists were building towards solo debuts of their own on Rawkus, Talib's dropping in 2000 under his duo name Reflection Eternal with producer Hi-Tek to critical acclaim. And I can't think of many living rappers who have captured that sort of mystique to hold it for so long as Yasiin Bey, who twenty years ago was known as Mos Def. well, it's complicated, because you're trying to contextualize a moment and capture its significance, but also be realistic on how the art's impact has persisted, how much of that luster remains. And you can argue there are acts who came and went so quickly with projects that seemed so transcendent that the legacy sticks for years or even decades - hell, Jay Electronica has kept hype alive on the potential of a project for over a decade now!īut if you're removed from the time, if you weren't there. You know, one thing I've struggled with on this series is the question of mystique, especially as it's the sort of thing that's tough to contextualize outside of the explicit moment in which it's felt, and it's a feeling that has persisted with certain acts for far longer than you'd expect.
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