loosie: words: Wackstar

Wackstar

The latest effort from Mos Def won't win the praise of his longtime fans.

by Douglas Passion | 2004.10.11

Olivia Goldsmith’s novel First Wives Club spins the tale of three middle-aged divorcees who plot revenge against the slimy ex-husbands who abandoned them in favor of younger and perkier-breasted trophy wives. In each case, the bottom bitch was spurned after helping her spouse to achieve wealth, fame and general career success. Extending this concept to the fair damsel of Hip-Hop, the ranks of those ungrateful louse-like men include Mos Def, Q-Tip and Andre 3000.

Embraced by Hip-Hop listeners for possessing the rare ability to create music that forged new rules instead of abiding by conventional ones, the aforementioned trio soon tired of its puppy-love sweetheart. Eyes began to wander. Maybe they felt Hip-Hop’s rigid tempos and rhyming cadences were too structurally limiting for advanced expression. Perhaps they believed they’d accomplished all there was to achieve in the world of boom-bap. They could have been embarrassed that their new celebrity friends associated their artistry with a genre populated by gun-toting skeet-skeeters draped in glass-table-banging chains. Or they just wanted some new gushy.

If Mos Def’s The New Danger is something a “Dear John” letter, it might read like this:

Dear Hip-Hop,

We’ve had some great times together. I’ll always dearly love the one-and-a-half solid albums we raised together. Remember good old Kweli? He’s in a bit of a destructive relationship, but hopefully he’ll get some good counseling. Faithful dude, that Talib. There are so many things I’d like to thank you for. Remember back when I first started acting? Yeah, the Cosby Mysteries/Spin City era, back when they called me Dante Beze. Without your help, I doubt I’d be in the upcoming Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or that flick where bag-of-bones Billy Bob shish kabobbed Berry. Can’t forget the Carmen thing on MTV or Def Poetry on HBO. Good looks, Ma. You’re that piff. But things change. I have to be honest; your suspicions about Rock and R&B were justified. And I’ve been flirting with those slores for a while – you spotted the “Umi Says” lipstick on the collar of my colorful blazer and overheard me whispering “they could never rock like Nina Simone” on my celly. Anyway, I promise to stop by and fuck you every now and then.

Holla,

Mighty

Yes, The New Danger has a bunch of rap songs. That’s part of the Lauryn Hill methodology: spit enough verses to keep the originoo heads on the bandwagon but direct the majority of the album towards attracting a new fan base. Is Mos really so calculating? Andre 3000’s success in carving out an identity as an NPG quasi-crooner had to have been acknowledged with at least a piqued eye. But Mos is a creative dude -- it’s also likely he just wanted the try some new, new, new shit. The problem is, like most emcee-cum-non-emcees, he’s a much better rapper than he is a singer or rocker. We’re not denigrating his chops; Mos was just a very good rapper. As one listens to The New Danger, it’s almost impossible to shake the feeling that we’re not getting the best material he can offer as an artist.

On Hip-Hop tracks like “Freaky Black”, “Sex, Love and Money”, and “The Rapeover” (winning line: “closet homosexuals is running this rap shit”), Mos often seems content to get over on his formidable charisma rather than the carefully penned lyrics that were par for the course on his solo debut. Things get better on “Close Edge” and “War”, where Mos ably combines his top-notch delivery with thoughtful verses and searing Rock riffs. “Modern Marvel” is another well-constructed hybrid of rapping and singing spun over a Marvin Gaye sample. The album’s final song, “Champion Requiem” is just some dope Hip-Hop shit.

To his credit, Mos doesn’t abandon Hip-Hop with the cold-heartedness that Andre Benjamin exhibited on The Love Below. But neither has Mos been responsible for four stellar rap albums over the last decade. Doug Passion has never been one to begrudge a motherfucker the right to experiment or artistically grow. I’ve got Velvet Underground in the disc-changer, thun. And way too many White rappers have been niftily using their complexion to slide into the “alternative” Hip-Hop category (as if Slug and Aesop Rock are any more emotionally nuanced or conceptually deep than Ghostface) – at least it’s nice to see more Black artists pull a similar hustle. The New Danger is a good album; it’s just not the great Hip-Hop LP Mos Def is capable of spawning. There are plenty of Hip-Hop elements and themes, but, strictly speaking, we’re not going to buy the argument that since Mos Def is Hip-Hop, then he takes Hip-Hop dumps, eats B-Boy frankfurters and watches Everybody Loves Raymond on some rap shit. If we combine his two solo albums and the Blackstar jammy, Mighty Mos has presented us with two very good rap joints. We need a classic before he completely plucks up the tent strings and elopes with those filthy bitches.