#BTColumn – The Black Star Line

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author(s) do not represent the official position of Barbados TODAY. 

by Adrian Sobers

“Sony or Aiwa, black or white, I fit in all stereotypes.”  – (Wordsworth, Twice Inna Lifetime)

Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star is an album that, unlike what the final track name suggests, comes along once in a lifetime. The title is a nod to the name of the shipping company founded by Marcus Garvey.

The album, ahead of its time when it was released almost 25 years ago, is light years ahead of the offering from your typical modern mumbler. This is especially true of Respiration, a song about life in the shiny but bruised Big Apple, “where you could get murdered over a glare.”

Long before Jay-Z and Alicia Keys sang about the “concrete jungle where dreams are made of”, two black stars (three if we count Common) described the same city.

“Skyscrapers is colossus, the cost of livin’ is preposterous / … Can’t tell between the cops and the robbers/They both partners, they all heartless, with no conscience/Back streets stay darkened, while unbeliever hearts stay hardened.”

Not much has changed in the Bruised Apple since this verse dropped; if anything the preposterous cost of living has gotten worse and is no longer unique to NYC but is crushing the working poor across the globe. But currency, like all other concerns, now bow to Climate.

If Black Star represents Mos and Talib at the peak of their bookish powers, then Thieves in the Night is the track that epitomizes this peak: “Not strong, only aggressive, not free, we only licensed/Not compassionate, only polite … /Chasing after death so we can call ourselves brave? /Still living like mental slaves.” Not strong, only aggressive speaks to the thug mentality that is often the literal death of us.

Polite, not compassionate is a reminder that manners do not necessarily “maketh man”. Good manners should not be confused with genuine care. Chasing after death needs no explanation. Unless, of course, we insist on fooling ourselves every February like we do every August. We quote Bob Marley on the first of August and continue merrily on the second fettered by the state and our economic central planners. Pick one and be done already.

Mos (now Yasiin Bey) and Talib’s use of mental slavery comes from a speech given by Garvey, “We are going to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery because whilst others might free the body, none but ourselves can free the mind. Mind is your only ruler, sovereign. The man who is not able to develop and use his mind is bound to be the slave of the other man who uses his mind.”

The most important part of the song in the context of Black History/African Awareness Month (call it what you wish), comes from a shot the duo took at how we sellout ourselves and our communities.

They simultaneously, even if indirectly, also deal with the silly idea that just because one does not embrace everything in “the culture”, one is a “hater”. (Sho Baraka put it best, “How can the culture grow if the culture hates correction?”)

The duo referred generally to what Bad Boy Records represented at the time – “Same song, just remixed, different arrangement” – then referenced Biggie’s Hypnotise video: “Put you on a yacht, but they won’t call it the slave ship / Strangeness, you don’t control us, you barely hold this / Screaming “Brand new!”, when they just sanitised the old s—.” No lies detected here; yachts (and studios) can be likened to the new slave ships.

Some of the people we put on a pedestal are sell-outs. Mos and Talib knew of and spoke to back then what we pretend to be ignorant of and remain silent on now: “Cause the captors own the masters to what we writing / … Our sincerity’s rehearsed in stage, it’s just a game.” Things are slightly different now and the captors often look like us given the wealth we’ve accumulated in the industry.

And, as Mos explained on the opening track of Black on Both Sides, hip-hop is about the people and it won’t get better until the people get better.

And how do people get better? “When they start to understand that they are valuable”, not because of money or looks, but because they are created by and in the image of God; “God makes you valuable.” Whether we recognize that value is another story.

Two tidbits from Talib are the perfect place to wind down this brief journey on the Black Star line, “Our morals are out of place and got our lives full of sorrow / … Waiting on someone to pity us / While we find the beauty in the hideous.” And again, “Raise my son, no vindication of manhood necessary.” Pity, deconstructing, decolonising, and vindication via violence simply will not do. We would be much further along if we sincerely prayed the prayer recorded in Luke 18:13: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

As we disembark, we do well to remember the song’s outro: “Stop hiding, stop hiding celebrating death/ ‘Cause ain’t no hiding place / … Black Star keep shining.” If we are to keep shining we will need to constantly guard and revisit the definition of the curious celestial phenomenon Mos and Taleb mentioned on Astronomy, namely, Black Star.

The question they posed almost 25 years ago about the Black Star, is one that every generation must answer: “But what is it?”

Our answer, like our discography, will shape our destiny.

Adrian Sobers is a prolific letter writer and social commentator. This column was submitted as a Letter to the Editor.