Talib Kweli Says Mos Def Makes All The Decisions In Black Star And He's Ok With That

Kweli is my guest on Toure Show podcast next week

Every musical group has a different dynamic but in most of them there’s one unquestioned leader. They’re usually not democracies. For example, this week I had a deep conversation with Talib Kweli about Black Star, the legendary group that includes Yasiin Bey AKA Mos Def. “When it comes to Black Star,” Kweli said, “it's whatever Yasiin wants to do. That's how it works. Hey man, whatever you want to do. You want to do this or you don't want to do it, it's fine, whatever you want to do. That's how it works.” Bey makes all the decisions and Kweli lets him. What’s the sonic direction of the music? Which songs make the album? When do they make an album? When do they tour? It’s all on Bey. Would it work any other way? “I don't know. I've never really tried it.”

Kweli said this dynamic had never even been tested. He said, “Me and that man, we've never had an argument. Slight disagreements, but never an all-out argument. There's things that he's said that I don't get, and things he's done that I don't get, but I trust him and I have faith in him. And when it comes to art, his track record is almost 100% correct. He's always ahead of the curve. So even if I don't understand what's happening right now, the reason will come to pass at some point. I'll understand in a few years. One time I said, We should do the Black Star show with a band. He said, No. Black Star is two MCs and a DJ. I was like, okay. I agree with him now. You know what I'm saying?”

Kweli explained the difference between the names Yasiin Bey and Mos Def. “He changed it to Yasiin Bey because he's like, Yasiin Bey is who I really am. Mos Def was just some guy I was trying to be that I don't even really have ownership over. But Yasiin Bey is the real me.”

Kweli said Bey makes him better. “He makes me a better human being by being my brother and my friend. He’s inspirational to me on a level that's so far beyond hiphop that it's like, fuck hiphop. It's not even about hiphop with this guy. That's like my real family. You know what I'm saying? And he inspires me so much deeper than rap. He inspires me as a man and spiritually and with the way he views art. What he deems is important helps me navigate.”

Of course he makes Kweli better as an MC. “He very specifically challenges the idea that we have to always rap for the sake of rapping. That we have to always be participating in the discourse. That we have to talk about how dope we are. On the new Black Star album—I say new like we didn't do it three years ago, but it's new to a lot of people—there are songs where I changed my verse, because he challenged me. Because he said, should we be talking about ourselves on this song? With everything that's going on in the world? Or is there a deeper way we can approach this? And this is when my verse is fire, but it's like, as fire as the verse is, do you really want to tell them how dope you are as an MC? Or is there something deeper we can do on this song?”

How Bey deliver this feedback? Kweli said he would say it as nicely as imaginable. He’d say it in a way where it wouldn't feel like a criticism but more like a righteous challenge.

I said ok, that’s cool, but, damn, Black Star could’ve been bigger, they could’ve released more music, they could’ve toured more. Kweli has a partner who’s amazing when he’s there, but he’s not around to make music or perform nearly as often as he could be. “I don't look at it that way,” Kweli said. “I understand the logic behind that. But for me, it's whatever shall be is how it is. He’s a man who sees the industry as something we don't have to be running to be a part of. And I think he's correct about that. I have enough to eat, which is a phrase that I got from Yasiin Bey. That's something he says all the time. I have enough to eat.”

What does that mean? “It means stop being greedy, like DMX said. You know what I'm saying? It means, appreciate what you have. To quote Yasiin, ‘We're chasing fun at the expense of joy.’”

Kweli knew of Bey long before they met. “When I met him I was already a fan. He was local famous.” Before Black Star, Bey was a child actor who played Bill Cosby’s sidekick on “The Cosby Mysteries” and was in a Visa commercial with Deion Sanders and had a small role alongside Michael Jackson in his video for “Ghosts.” “He was like a local celeb and he would come out and hang out with us. It was like, man, look at this guy, he's so cool, he's a celebrity.”

Kweli quietly slid Bey his demo tape a few times to let him know, yo, I rap, too. “We had children at the same time, so we started doing like family dinners together,” Kweli said. “I would be at his house having dinner and I would leave my demo tape so he could hear it. He called me up one day, he was like, yo, I'm listening to this “Reflection Eternal'“ demo that you left at my house, and it's amazing. And that's how our artistic conversation started. I was trying to get his attention artistically. But Black Star was his idea. Well, everything's his idea. It's all his idea.”