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A year later came Mos Def's solo album, Black on Both Sides, and it inspired further attention and praise. The resulting album, Black Star (1998), became one of the most discussed rap albums of its time. Soon he moved to Rawkus Records, which was just getting off the ground at the time, and began working on a full-length album with like-minded rapper Talib Kweli and beat maker DJ Hi-Tek. A year later, he released a single of his own for Royalty Records, "Universal Magnetic," and it created quite a stir. Appearances on songs by De La Soul ("Big Brother Beat") and da Bush Babees ("S.O.S.") - both released in 1996 - began Mos Def's rap career with much propulsion. He soon grew frustrated with life as an actor and switched to rapping.
Mos def the ecstatic rap genius series#
After high school, he began acting in a variety of television roles, most notably appearing on a short-lived Bill Cosby series in 1994, The Cosby Mysteries.
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br /br /Born in Brooklyn, Mos Def pursued the arts at a young age, excelling as a performer. For the most part though, Mos Def maintained a low profile in successive years, rediscovering his pa**ion for acting and forming the rap-rock supergroup Black Jack Johnson. His solo debut, Black on Both Sides (1999), did much the same a year later. His first full-length album, Black Star (1998), a collaboration with Talib Kweli and DJ Hi-Tek, shook the hip-hop community, which embraced the album and spoke of a Native Tongue revival. Following these guest appearances and some singles for Royalty (most notably "Universal Magnetic"), Mos Def began recording for the upstart Rawkus label. Based in Brooklyn, he began affiliating himself with the local hip-hop scene, appearing on tracks by such esteemed groups as De La Soul and da Bush Babees. By the mid-'90s though, Mos Def turned to rap music as his new profession, frustrated by how little acting paid relative to rapping. His artistic career began in the late '80s as a television actor, a profession he began directly out of high school.
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Initially regarded as one of hip-hop's most promising newcomers in the late '90s, Mos Def expanded his reach in the years to come, establishing himself as a serious actor and also making a bid to reshape the rap-rock genre.