Black Star

During a time when the success of Sean Combs, Jay-Z, and Master P seemed to pull the curtain over socially conscious rap music, Black Star summoned the spirit of the Native Tongues movement and brought organic hip-hop back to the mainstream. Combining B-boy sensibility and African-American academics, the duo consisting of Mos Def and Talib Kweli began spreading its message of racial and social transcendentalism at the Lyricist Lounge - an underground, open-mike forum for unsigned MCs in New York.

Mos Def first presented his rhythmically precise flow onstage at the Lyricist Lounge in 1992, along with artists like Mobb Deep, Foxy Brown, and the Notorious B.I.G. Mos Def and Kweli also came together at the club, and after appearing individually on various compilations and 12-inch singles, formed Black Star - the name deriving from Marcus Garvey’s Black Star Line of boat service to Africa. Their debut album, Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star (#53 pop, #13 R&B, 1998), was filled with poetry about self-determination and political injustice. In the ensuing two years, both Mos Def and Kweli received critical acclaim for their solo releases. In 2000, the two members of Black Star also founded the Hip-Hop for Respect Foundation (HHFRF), a nonprofit organization dedicated to motivating the entertainment industry to become more involved in philanthropy. To raise money for HHFRF, Mos Def and Kweli enlisted a roster of artists including RZA, De La Soul, Pras, and Rah Digga to create a maxi-single that paid tribute to the killing of West African immigrant Amadou Diallo, who was gunned down by four New York City police officers outside his home in the Bronx in 1999. At the end of 2000, Mos Def performed in Manhattan with his Jack Johnson side project, which featured Parliament-Funkadelic’s Bernie Worrell and Living Colour’s Doug Wimbish and Will Calhoun.

from The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001)