The New Danger [PA]

Performer: Mos Def
Artist: Shuggie Otis; Paul Oscher; Minnesota
Producer: Easy Mo Bee; Kanye West; Minnesota; Mos Def; Psycho Les
Distributor: Universal Distribution

Notes: Personnel: Mos Def (rap vocals, piano, drums); Raphael Saadiq (guitar, bass guitar); Shuggie Otis (guitar); Paul Oscher, Minnesota. When it takes you five years to follow up a debut of near-landmark stature, you're setting yourself up for failure. Mos Def's second solo album is not disastrous, but it's a sprawling, overambitious mess. A handful of songs from this 75-minute affair feature Black Jack Johnson, the rock band Mos set up with some very respected musicians: bassist Doug Wimbish (Sugar Hill house band, Living Colour), drummer Will Calhoun (Living Colour), guitarist Dr. Know (Bad Brains), and keyboardist Bernie Worrell (Parliament/Funkadelic). While that's a deadly cast of support, those guests seem to have gone into this inspired more by the negligible rap-meets-rock Judgment Night soundtrack than their own past work. The grooves and riffs are basic (of the dull variety), and the vocals rarely surpass echo-heavy shouts of "Let's go!" "Come with it!" and "F*ck you, pay me!" As poor as those songs are, the lowest point of the album is "The Rape Over," a rewrite of Jay-Z's "The Takeover" that jacks Kanye West's beat from same that, for all its sharp rage, is ruined by the line "Quasi-homosexuals is running this rap sh*t" (it's not a boast). Unsurprisingly, the hottest moments tend to come when Mos sticks to what he does best. One slight exception to this is "Modern Marvel," a nine-minute suite smeared with a series of Marvin Gaye samples. Mos sings in whispers (he makes Pharrell sound like Luther, but he has the required spirit), momentum floats in as easy as a light breeze, and then the MC shifts into goosepimple-raising mode. Throughout the whole thing, Mos Def's conviction is apparent. Even with that in his favor, in addition to considering the extra-genre dabblings on Black on Both Sides, The New Danger sounds confused. It should've taken Mos at least three more records for him to reach this state of restless aimlessness. What grates most is that Q-Tip's Kamaal the Abstract, the best out of the rash of horizon-broadening records from rap artists the past few years, remains unreleased. ~ Andy Kellman When it takes you five years to follow up a debut of near-landmark stature, you're setting yourself up for failure. Mos Def's second solo album is not disastrous, but it's a sprawling, overambitious mess. A handful of songs from this 75-minute affair feature Black Jack Johnson, the rock band Mos set up with some very respected musicians: bassist Doug Wimbish (Sugar Hill house band, Living Colour), drummer Will Calhoun (Living Colour), guitarist Dr. Know (Bad Brains), and keyboardist Bernie Worrell (Parliament/Funkadelic). Unsurprisingly, the hottest moments tend to come when Mos sticks to what he does best. One slight exception to this is "Modern Marvel," a nine-minute suite smeared with a series of Marvin Gaye samples. Mos sings in whispers (he makes Pharrell sound like Luther, but he has the required spirit), momentum floats in as easy as a light breeze, and then the MC shifts into goose pimple-raising mode. Throughout the whole thing, his conviction is apparent. ~ Andy Kellman Mos Def's mind and music both move as swiftly and exhaustively as his career, which has seen the Brooklyn, NY rapper form a rock band (Black Jack Johnson), star in movies, and flirt with Broadway, in addition to releasing a definitive hip-hop album in 1999's critically lauded BLACK ON BOTH SIDES. Nowhere is the far-reaching nature of Def's ever-percolating mind as clearly demonstrated as on 2004's genre-obliterating THE NEW DANGER. While BLACK ON BOTH SIDES certainly played around with many different styles, THE NEW DANGER lays waste to any musical boundaries, shifting from rap to soul to blues to hard rock, as soothing grooves are blasted out of their slumber by the blistering assault of Black Jack Johnson. Mos Def's thoughts are positively overflowing as he plays musical provocateur on "The Rape Over," lifting the Kanye West beat of Jay-Z's "Takeover" for his own pointed attack on the music industry. Def also decries the state of the world on "War," and offers a roots-blues parable of his band's namesake boxer on "Blue Black Jack." In the middle of all this measured chaos lies "Sunshine," a wistful, sweet, and subtly powerful track, and a reminder of Mos Def's narrative-based lyrical prowess, never showy or flowery, but flush with purpose and soul.

Rolling Stone (p.101) - 4 stars out of 5 - "[E]arthy, impressively diverse...Broadening the hip-hop palette without sacrificing, or selling out, its core ideals." Rolling Stone (p.150) - Included in Rolling Stone's Top 50 Records Of 2004 - "Mos Def has come through with another eccentric, fuming hip-hop album..." Spin (p.113) - "The radio-ready sin jam 'Sex, Love & Money' throbs with fat horn stabs and flute runs, and 'Ghetto Rock' pairs classic boom-bap with needling guitar..." - Grade: B Uncut (p.157) - 3 stars out of 5 - "[He] has proved himself to be hip-hop's renaissance man....An experimental and melancholic set." Mojo (Publisher) (p.100) - 4 stars out of 5 - "[T]here's no empty rhetoric here, just honest tales of struggle, of tragedy, of lives thrown into fatal tailspins by impossible twists of fate....A bruised and bristling meditation on pain and alienation."

Like many rappers, New York underground hip-hop hero Mos Def was first heard on guest appearances with other artists, in this case Da Bush Babees and De La Soul. It was his 1998 collaboration with the like-minded Talib Kweli in the duo Black Star that brought him fame, however. A subsequent solo album full of similarly progressive tracks was well received, but it was Mos Def's film roles in the late '90s/early '00s (THE ITALIAN JOB, BAMBOOZLED, BROWN SUGAR, etc.) that heightened the forward-looking rapper's profile even further.

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