Black Star, named after the Black Star Line shipping company founded by activist and Pan-Africanist
Marcus Garvey, is a collaboration between rappers
Yasiin Bey (formerly
Mos Def) and
Talib Kweli. Although they had been active separately for years, the highly lyrical Brooklynites' 1998 album,
Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star, expanded their audience far beyond devout underground hip-hop listeners, crashing the upper half of the Billboard 200 and placing two singles, "Definition" and "Respiration," in the Top Ten of the rap chart.
Bey and
Kweli went on to further acclaim as solo artists, and performed and recorded together on occasion, but it wasn't until 2022 that they made a second
Black Star album, No Fear of Time, produced entirely by
Madlib.
Bey and
Kweli became acquaintances through hip-hop cyphers at Washington Square Park in Lower Manhattan, and also performed at open-mike spoken word events.
Bey established himself as one-third of Urban Thermo Dynamics, a sibling trio with a handful of singles for Payday/FFRR from 1994 to 1995, produced by the likes of
Salaam Remi,
Diamond D, and
J-Swift. Around the same time,
Kweli made his first recorded appearance as an uncredited featured guest on "Transmoreify," a 1994 track by Cincinnati-based group
Mood, whose 1997 LP Doom also featured
Kweli on several cuts.
Kweli's Midwest activity connected him with producer
Hi-Tek, who would become his partner in the duo
Reflection Eternal.
Bey and
Kweli teamed for "Freestyle" on the 1997 Rawkus compilation Soundbombing, but it wasn't until the next year that they launched the Rawkus-signed
Black Star with "Definition," an anti-violence track produced by
Hi-Tek.
A month after the arrival of their first single -- on September 29, to be exact -- the duo released
Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star. Despite hitting shelves the same day as
Jay-Z's
Vol. 2...Hard Knock Life,
OutKast's
Aquemini,
A Tribe Called Quest's
The Love Movement, and
Brand Nubian's
Foundation, the album was an unexpected commercial success out of the box, registering at number 53 on the Billboard 200. Quickly regarded as a work of major significance,
Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star yielded a pair of Top Ten hits on Billboard's Rap chart, with "Definition" reaching number three and "Respiration," produced by
Hi-Tek with an appearance from
Common, peaking at number six. "Definition" also managed to cross into the Hot 100 at number 60, remarkable for a seemingly left-field rap single. In addition to
Hi-Tek, the album featured productions from the likes of
Da Beatminerz,
Shawn J. Period,
88-Keys,
J. Rawls, and
Ge-ology (with
Kweli co-producing a pair). Just as significant as any of the guest verses were the keys of low-profile jazz and R&B legend
Weldon Irvine, heard on "Astronomy (8th Light)."
Bey and
Kweli soon returned the favor with their contributions to
Irvine's The Amadou Project: The Price of Freedom.
Black Star recordings and appearances over the next two decades were rare.
Bey released his first solo album,
Black on Both Sides, in 1999.
Kweli and
Hi-Tek issued
Train of Thought, the first
Reflection Eternal LP, in 2000. Throughout the early 2000s,
Bey and
Kweli delivered
Black Star cuts for a handful of compilations and soundtracks. These included "Little Brother" (produced by
Jay Dee for The Hurricane), "Money Jungle" (recorded with
Ron Carter and
Big John Patton for the
Duke Ellington tribute and AIDS benefit compilation Red Hot + Indigo), and "Brown Sugar (Raw)" (produced by
Kanye West for the soundtrack of
Brown Sugar, a film in which
Bey starred).
Black Star performed at
Dave Chappelle's Block Party in 2004, as documented in the film of the same title, and continued to record on a sporadic basis, sometimes appearing on one another's solo projects. More promisingly, in 2011, the duo released the
Madlib collaboration "Fix Up" and a track from a planned mixtape tribute to
Aretha Franklin. By then, a second proper
Black Star album had reportedly been in the works for over half a decade. It didn't reach fruition until May 2022, when No Fear of Time became available exclusively through a subscription podcast network.
Madlib produced all nine of its tracks, and featured roles were limited to
Black Thought and
Yummy Bingham. ~ Andy Kellman