Mos Def (Yasiin Bey)

Why he matters

Dante Smith grew up in Brooklyn, worked as a child actor, and started rapping in 1994 in a short-lived group called Urban Thermo Dynamics with his younger brother and a friend. By 1996 he was guesting on records by De La Soul and Da Bush Babees, and in 1997 he put out his first solo single, “Universal Magnetic.”

He signed with Rawkus Records and teamed with Talib Kweli as Black Star. Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star came out in 1998, mostly produced by Hi-Tek, and it’s a record about Brooklyn and about rap itself, written by two people who clearly cared what the form was doing. “Definition” and “Respiration” were the singles.

Black on Both Sides followed in October 1999. It went gold, but the reason to hear it is the range. DJ Premier did “Mathematics,” Ali Shaheed Muhammad of A Tribe Called Quest did “Got,” Psycho Les did “New World Water,” and Mos co-produced several songs and handled one, “Fear Not of Man,” himself. The album leans on live instrumentation, which was not the default for a Brooklyn rap record in 1999.

Later records got looser and less consistent. Then The Ecstatic in 2009, with beats from Madlib, Oh No and others, brought him back to form for a lot of listeners. He now records as Yasiin Bey.

What a working rapper can take from it

Learn enough music to talk to players. Mos could sing a hook, co-produce and front a live band, as he did with the Black Jack Johnson players on The New Danger, so his albums don’t sound like a rapper visiting a band. Even basic chord vocabulary changes the sessions you can run. When you can’t bring a band, the live-without-a-DJ guide covers stems and file prep so the set still feels played.

Collaborate with a peer, not a feature. Black Star was a full album with an equal partner, not a guest verse. Writing next to someone at your level exposes your lazy habits fast.

Political doesn’t mean preachy. His best social records work because they’re specific and musical first. Start from one scene you actually saw, then let the larger point come out of it.