Black on Both Sides

Black on Both Sides was an album released by Mos Def (born in Brooklyn, New York as Dante Terrell, or aka Yasiin Bey) on October 12, 1999. It was Mos Def's first solo album as he was in a duo called "Blackstar" with Talib Kweli before he released Black on Both Sides.

Music and Production

Black on Both Sides is a 17 track album that discusses everything from pollution to cultural appropriation. Mos Def is known for a smooth flow, rapping over beats that only add to his lyrics and not take away; His beats echoed the type the A Tribe called Quest in the mid to late 90's. Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest, Busta Rhymes and Talib Kweli each had one rapping feature on the album. Mos Def was never a mainstream artist and didn't go for that fun party music most of the time, however "Ms. Fat Booty" was his attempt at a party song, with a high strung beat and his same flow was his most popular song ever according to Billboard. "Ms. Fat Booty" was got as high as the #54 song on the Hip Hop/R&B Billboard charts. However this was not Mos Def's strong suit. "Mathematics" is a song that uses statistics to get the point across. He uses these statistics to compare white people and black people in the United States of America. While this wasn't extremely popular at the time, "Mathematics" has stayed as an all time classic and lasted the last 19 years, with many new hip hop fans still listening to that song. The most important part of Mos Def is how smooth he can talk about so many social-political issues, he doesn't do it in a negative way, he stays positive. He not only addresses the issues and tensions between the systematic racism we see in the US, but also says we have to fix things ourselves too, that there are things that black communities can work on as well.

Reviews

Mos Def - Mathematics

Although Mos Def never radio music Black on Both Sides reached a gold rating in sales from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), after hitting 500,000 album sales in 2002, 3 years after the album first released. The album was lauded for bringing social problems to the forefront in such a smooth way. Now considered a classic of the 90's hip hop genre, Black on Both sides is rated extremely high across all major music magazines. It is an extremely beloved album for 90's hip hop fans, and a stalwart of pro-black socially conscious rap.