New York still occupied the majority of the charts with five of the 10 rap albums with the highest first week sales in 1999, but the gap was closing quickly. Rap had already existed and thrived in other regions, but traditionalists, especially those in the five boroughs of NYC, felt it was more derivative each time another region got its hands on it. It felt like a last stand against what was most likely inevitable.
So this second wave of resistance against the commercialization and globalization of hip-hop had much more urgency. It seemed the first battle was lost as sales sky-rocketed while any semblance of consciousness in the mainstream was going to die along with Tupac and the Notorious B.I.G. It had happened once before in the late ’80s and early ’90s, when rap moved out West and many hip-hop traditionalists on the East Coast thought N.W.A were sensationalizing their lifestyle to pimp it across the country under the guise of “street knowledge.” Hence Common’s disappointment with the game in his 1994 track “I Used To Love H.E.R.” There is more of a peaceful coexistence of rap on top and hip-hop in the underground now, but 1999 saw a second wave of tension between artists who were considered to be continuing the traditions of hip-hop and those who were perceived to be selling out for money and fame. Dre’s 2001 would earn a gold certification in its first week en route to a platinum plaque with over 90 seconds of audio from a staged orgy on it. But at the same time, Juvenile and Cash Money foreshadowed a commercial rap boom when they declared both 19 were theirs on one of the biggest hits of the year, “ Back That Azz Up.” Dr. At the 1999 Grammys, Lauryn Hill claimed the first ever Album Of The Year award for a hip-hop and R&B release, with the tour de force that is The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill. The culture of hip-hop and the medium of rap were becoming more defined as separate entities while still occupying the same space as the century rapidly came to a close.
That made him an interesting dark horse to ride in the opposite direction of where popular rap was headed, and it seemed no one knew he would put conscious rap on his back at a time when it desperately needed to be carried into the new millennium.
Mos clearly wasn’t about gangster shit, bling, or any of the other tropes that were soon to take over in the decade leading up to his full-on leap into rap. He was also Bill Cosby’s sidekick on the short-lived show The Cosby Mysteries, and appeared in several commercials including a Visa check card ad where he pretended to geek out upon meeting Deion Sanders.
#Mos def the ecstatic album cover explicit movie
He made his professional acting debut in an ABC TV movie in 1988 at age 14 and went on to land a role as the oldest child on the sitcom You Take The Kids. He had the hood bona fides - hailing from the Brooklyn neighborhood Bedford-Stuyvesant when it was arguably at its worst - but in a time when rappers weren’t shit if they hadn’t diversified with a clothing line and acting roles, he was an actor first. He executed the rap superstar playbook somewhat backwards. On paper it didn’t seem like Mos Def, born Dante Smith, had the résumé to qualify him for a push to rap’s upper echelons as the millennium changed over. For an album so staunchly rooted in Brooklyn and hip-hop history, to exude that air and still sound revitalizing was quite the feat. If you’ve ever lived in or even just visited NYC, then you know sometimes it has the most stale, putrid, muggy air that will ever fill your lungs.
When Mos Def’s debut album Black On Both Sides arrived - 20 years ago, tomorrow - it was a refreshing breath of nasty New York City air of the Brooklyn variety.
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