BLACK STAR (PICTURE DISC REISSUE) by MOS DEF & TALIB KWELI
| SKU | 79895 |
| Artist | MOS DEF & TALIB KWELI |
| Title | BLACK STAR (PICTURE DISC REISSUE) |
| Label | RAWKUS |
| Catalog # | B002091301 |
| Tag | |
| Release | W 44 - 2014 |
| Format | Vinyl - USLP |
| € 34,99 | incl. VAT, excl. shipping |
Tracks
- Astronomy (8th Light)
- Definition
- Re:Definition
- Children's Story
- Brown Skin Lady
- B Boys Will B Boys
- KOS (Determination)
- Hater Players
- Yo Yeah
- Respiration
- Thieves In The Night
- Twice Inna Lifetime
Description
Classic Hip-hop album sees the daylight again! Now comes with picture discsMos Def & Talib Kweli are Black Star was released on August 18, 1998, to critical acclaim. The title is a reference to the Black Star Line, a shipping company founded by Pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey. The album deals with modern-day issues, philosophies and life in Brooklyn. The two MCs had planned to release solo albums around the same time, but decided instead to collaborate on a full-length album. The first single, “Definition (song),” is a reaction to hip-hop’s fascination with death, dedicated to both Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G., with a chorus that gives a nod to Boogie Down Productions’ “Stop the Violence.” “Children’s Story” is a re-imagination of the Slick Rick original, featuring Mos Def cautioning against materialism. The second single, “Respiration,” featuring Common, includes a Hi-Tek produced beat that samples Don Randi’s “The Fox” and another from the hip-hop documentary Style Wars. The track offers a melancholy ode to city life, with references to organic life functions such as breathing, eating and sleeping, but with an ominous edge, as Kweli raps about “sitting on shitty steps/we stooped to new lows, hell froze/the night the city slept.” The album peaked at No. 53 on the Billboard Top 200 and No. 13 on the Hip-Hop Albums chart, but has become considered a classic since then.
