MOS DEF & TALIB KWELI

ARE BLACK STAR

Black Star

Rawkus Records

Hip-hop purists forever converse about the counted days of "real hip-hop," with the menacing monster termed Mainstream looming like a promise from the Book of Revelations. Entire careers germinate and blossom from cliche rhymes, jacked beats and videos with big breasts spread across massive mansions; and every so often rapping prophets warn us about the Apocalypse behind the corner of the next edition of Rap City. Against this backdrop, lyrical nerds wonder aloud, who will save us?

Yadda yadda yadda. Save us from what exactly? I sometimes--briefly--wonder while rocking my new mix tape (invariably full of apocalyptic caveats). The underground thrives no matter what. But that's the point: It's underground. Those of us who remember the days when even MTV defined hip-hop according to Public Enemy and Tribe feel like there are too few true artists with record deals that actually expose them beyond their area code. Hip-hop dinosaurs everywhere agree: what we need is an independent label to push a slammin' act that just wouldn't flop--even in a world where a track by Pras reaches number one in the pop charts. So when rumors about a Black Star album first seeped through the math, everyone saw the skies clear. The buzz actually proliferated some'm ridiculous. Might as well quote the 18th Letter: "Nobody been this long awaited since Jesus."

And I mean really anticipated. The sizeable graf piece in Soho dedicated to Black Star can corroborate this hierarchy of expectancy: first Christ, then Rakim, then Black Star. These cats managed to be interviewed by everybody, even when we thought the album was supposed to be an EP. Then they put forth "Definition," a first single that achieved the seemingly impossible--i.e. reusing BDP's "1-2-3" hook and still coming off--and then slowly gave the world little tastes of glories to come, such as tracks featuring Common and underground hero Wordsworth's best appearance on wax to date. Everyone I talked to was in concurrence: This album is gonna be bananas!

Mos Def & Talib Kweli are Black Star dropped, and the praise continues. One of my boys wrote me an e-mail message from upstate Massachussetts specifically to confess his amazement: "Yo this LP is ridiculous. Every track is plain dope. The beats are phat, the lyrics are intelligent, and yet it still has the feel of a demo." To this day I wonder how he managed to italicize using Pine.

Or peep another comment from a friend of mine from Philly: "Mos Def and Kweli are my boys. Ever since I heard `Fortified Live' [that magnum opus from '96 that gave birth to the duo], Mos's singles and especially Kweli's `Manifesto' I knew that when they made an album it would blow the f-- up." Aight girl, "Fortified Live" still gives me goose epidermis and Kweli's "Manifesto" remains one of hip-hop's all-time classics, but must you curse?

That's the only way the message seems to drive home though. In every conversation I have about new records this year, my interlocutor has to bring up their adamant love for Black Star's album. What about Outkast's joint? The Source gave it five mics. "So what," they always shrug; "every hype hip-hop album in history gets three and a half mics in The Source."

True indeed, oddly enough; and Black Star's is no exception. But this time I agree, five mics were not due. One of my roommates made one reason clear: "Why Mos Def gotta sing so much?" The revamped 1-2-3 hook in "RE:Definition" tries to be too Sinatra--just as annoying as his uh-uh-uh's in "Hater Players"--"plus," I always add, "the beat sounds Casio." "Yo I don't know about this `Children's Story' remake," I heard someone else complain; "he didn't do jack with it." "And what about his monotone formats in `Brown Skin Lady?'" "Yo, what the hell is `Yo Yeah,' on the real?" "Yo, `Respiration' is dope and all, but you know them heads was on some weed talk when they came up with `the city's breathing."

Alright, alright, so Mos Def should stick to rhyming. So the beat to "Hater Players" doesn't live up to its stellar rhymes. So you heard about five of the 13 tracks this summer a month or two before the album was scheduled to drop. Do you like the album though? "Oh no doubt, this the tightest sh--out this year." There you go cursing again, b. "It's just that dope, and that important."

I feel you. No Limit ads must get clowned: flow in rhyme delivery must get pushed; intelligent lyrics must be praised in the very lyrics--and if you can explain why all this is imperative, even better. So thank you, oh cosmic structure of things, for letting Rawkus Records exist and publicize a group like Black Star so effectively. Thank you, Mos Def and Kweli, for letting us know that "life without thought is just death in disguise;" and that even battle rhymes like "you stoppin us? that's just preposterous like an androgenous mysoginist" can equip us against the extinction we hip-hop fanatics frantically fear.