Mos def the ecstatic sample11/20/2022 He gets arguably the worst Kanye West beat of 2004 (“Sunshine”) and makes something interesting out of it. He licks shots at Lyor Cohen and quotes Trick Daddy (“Ghetto Rock”). He kicks street shit then coos a woman out of her underwear. There is no ?uestlove, Dilla, Prince, James Poyser, or Erykah Badu to guide him expertly onto white rock critics year end lists. Mos spent half of The New Danger following suite and the other half being, well, dangerous. The retail version tells the story of a man rebelling against his past, namely the Rawkus persona of “conscious rapper.” In the early 2000’s, contemporaries like Common, Cee-Lo, Q-Tip, and Andre 3000 were bored with rap and decided to noodle with experimental records to mixed results. I cut this album down to 12 songs from 17, giving Minnesota half of the production to shape the album. He goes from keyboard beats (“Close Edge”) to lurching funk (“Ghetto Rock”) to gorgeous soul (“The Panties”). But Minnesota’s range on The New Danger needs to be commended. It was a strange choice based on Mos’ past list of backpacker approved collaborators: Hi-Tek, Diamond D, Shawn J. Mos met Minnesota while he was hosting Def Poetry on HBO–Minny was the in-house musical director. Minny’s claim to fame was producing “I’m Not a Player” for Big Pun (and later “Biscuits” for Ghostface). I’m looking for something that is rocking along those lines, that’s just got some teeth to it.īy the time The New Danger dropped, remnants of the band’s shelved album were scattered in the tracklist along with traditional beats from a new collaborator, producer Minnesota. I don’t want to fiddle, you know? I mean, I listen to Black Sabbath and Bad Brains and, you know, Fugazi and Pantera. “In my estimation, there’s a lot of rock bands sort of just fiddling with hip-hop, and a lot of hip-hop bands sort of fiddling with rock. Black Jack Johnson was a murderers row of musicians from Bad Brains, Funkadelic, and Living Colour. Mos spent the years after Black on Both Sides touring with his band Black Jack Johnson (the band had to change their name with the emergence of Chill Bro Supreme Jack Johnson). Mos was not fucking with Limp Bizkit or Kid Rock. Fat Booty,” “Respiration,” “Definition,” and “Oh No.” Instead, The New Danger is more of a continuation of the song “Rock n Roll” off BOBS. People expected The New Danger to follow the vibes of “Ms. It was also 75 minutes long: a nine minute ode to Marvin Gaye sat next to freestyles over “No Idea’s Original” and “The Takeover.” Mos Def the Soulful Vocalist was mashed next to Mos Def The Pantera Enthusiast next to Mos Def The Underrated Street Philosopher. Whereas Black Star and Black on Both Sides were concise, warm, and well thought out albums, The New Danger was dark, scattered, and bizarre. They HATED this album, and rightfully so: musically, it was all over the place. It was lambasted upon its release, almost on the level of Raekwon’s Immobilarity (still the worst follow-up to a classic album ever). I worked at a record store at the time, and people who bought the CD on Tuesday came back to return it on Wednesday. MOS DEF THE ECSTATIC SAMPLE FULLThe New Danger arrived in 2004, a full five years after Black on Both Sides. Before it’s release, Mos Def was still thought of as the smiling, critically acclaimed artist who wrote “Umi Says,” starred in “The Italian Job” and “Brown Sugar,” and owned a bookstore with Talib Kweli. I believe in album covers telling you precisely where artists are in their lives at that moment, so when you compare the covers from Mos Def’s breakthrough classic Black on Both Sides to The New Danger, you see a man once open and calm now hidden and confrontational. Zilla Rocca is the illegitimate son of Marvelous Marvin Hagler.
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