![]() ![]() That’s what was so vital about the group - it felt like they were responding to events on the ground. Still, though their music has a transcendent, timeless quality, they were just as bound to the ’98 moment as Lauryn Hill or Jay-Z or Gang Starr or Juvenile or Big Pun. The snares ricocheted amid luminously moody soundscapes (mostly via producer Hi-Tek), the throwback chants and asides and riffs on BDP, Slick Rick, Brand Nubian, and others, resonated with infectious humor, and the bass lines resounded “like an ancient mating call.”Īs Mos Def said at the Nokia: “This shit is fun.” And it wasn’t like musical cod liver oil. They brought an aggrieved yet witty, historically attuned but fresh point of view that shifted the focus, made you look hard at the culture’s sprawling commercial overthrow from different angles you might not have shared their “third eye vision,” but you viscerally felt their commitment to giving hip-hop’s yacht-rockin’ bacchanal, especially in the wake of Tupac and Biggie’s deaths, a deeper dimension. It was what they added to hip-hop’s rather bloated cipher. Which is to say that Black Star’s appeal, during the pairing’s brief late-’90s existence, was not just what they weren’t - gangstas, playas, blah blah. It could’ve helped that he was sporting a purple golf shirt, brown leather MCM visor, and ludicrously multi-colored Coogi shorts! Dude looked like a teenaged Tiger Woods trying to crash a Juice Crew cookout. It’s still startling to hear a skilled MC command an audience with such clear-eyed despair and make it sound so energizing. “Tonight alive, let’s describe the inscrutable / The indisputable, we New York the narcotic / Strength in metal and fiber optics / Where mercenaries is paid to trade hot stock tips / For profits, thirsty criminals take pockets / Hard knuckles on the second hands of working-class watches / Skyscrapers is colossus, the cost of living is preposterous / Stay alive, you play or die, no options / No Batman and Robin, can’t tell between / The cops and the robbers, they both partners, they all heartless.” “This ain’t no time where the usual is suitable,” intoned Mos Def. Especially on set closer, “Respiration,” with its “breathe in/breathe out” depiction of the City as a living organism possibly heaving its last, the twosome could’ve been snatching bars straight from the morning news wire. Black Violin - a mildly entertaining Miami quartet featuring two violinists, a DJ, and live drummer - drew chuckles and winces when they announced: “We got a VitaminWater commercial out with Kobe and Lebron and we’re gonna play you a track from that.”Ĩ8 Keys followed, and the producer of Black Star’s “Thieves in the Night” (plus other Kweli and Mos Def tracks) bombed mightily with his horny-nerd shtick, flailing around in thick glasses and suit and tie, at one point resorting to a goofy Kanye West impression, mouthing Yeezy’s trite lyrics on the Keys track “Stay Up! (Viagra)” in an unsuccessful effort to quell the boos.Īlso Read SPIN Presents Lipps Service With Talib Kweliīut finally, when Kweli and Mos Def emerged, and the former’s passionately upright entreaties and the latter’s charmingly poetic invective found a collective sweet spot, their reprised 1998 dissent in the Age of Diddy Decadence didn’t feel dated at all. It was a sketchy, lengthy prelude to the headliners, however. And throughout the first of two sold-out shows this past Saturday night at New York’s Nokia Theatre Times Square, Mos Def and Talib Kweli’s homecoming as the duo Black Star intermittently flickered with that potential to shine anew. ![]() When are reunion shows not just about a nostalgic dollar day? When the music and message still have the same vibrant snap of relevance that they did before the artist cashed out. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |