| Brooklyn rapper Mos Def was already a hero of New York's hip hopunderground when he joined Talib Kweli on the Black Star album in1998. His soloBlack on Both Sides (Rawkus) is a living,breathing commercial for the articulate understatement favored by younginsurgents for whom hip hop is subculture first and pop culturelater or never. No hoochie choruses, no hooks vying for air time,just flowing beats intertwined with simple melodies--the subtledouble keyboards ofUmi Says, say, seguing into the plashingxylophone surrogate ofNew World Water. Mos Def is one of thoserappers who spills out philosophy as easily as someone discussingthe ball scores at the water cooler--lots of words, sometimesdrama, but rarely much showing off because he's too confident toneed it. As the title indicates, he's a race man. As you can't knowwithout listening, he's smart and loving and convincing about it--that is,eminently worth a listen.
OnAd Finite, their inaurural U.S. release and first album forTricky's Durban Poison label, the long-running English techno duoGenaside II spare no sonic expense in updating Gil Scott-Heron'sThe Revolution Will Not Be Televised, which is where their tripbegins. From fake strings and real opera singers to big beats andrough dancehall shouters, they make their soundscape all that itcan be. Two simpler techno records succeed in almost the oppositeway, by achieving one simple goal. OnAphrodite (Gee Street/V2)it's jungle beats closer to the funk root than is now the fashion,nowhere more explicitly than on the hard-rappedWoman That Rolls.Slick Sixty'sNibs and Nabs (Mute) goes for a more sophisticatedgroove--lounge r&b in the age of the sampler.Playboy, Nov. 1999
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