Magnetic: Mos Def News

All the news about Mos Def these days is really just news about Alicia Keys’ third #1 album. So, time to turn to the blogosphere for something that I hope will become a regular feature, Blogwatch. This is where I scan the blogs for people talking about Mos Def, and report it here. This will also provide a little link-love to those those precious few blogs that do talk about Mos Def.

The first installment proves that I’m not just a Mos Def fanboy. In a post cleverly titled, “Black On Both Sides: Mos Def and Hypocrisy” Jay from gotmilkfart calls out Mos Def for his appearance in a GMC Denali ad. Jay equates Mos Def rhyming about a truck to the slew of other rappers throwing their success into the face of their minions in the ghetto, only reinforcing the notion that “trucks = success” and the quick, easy path to status, fame, and wealth.

the impoverished mind only sees the end product. by any means necessary they want to achieve this goal – this status symbol because anything better than ghetto is great. what the impoverished mind doesn’t see is that there are many barriers that they have in front of them and me, as a minority, alike. instead of pimping the system and working through school, the impoverished mind wants the greatest goal for the least input and least time. the impoverished mind then turns to dealing drugs on his block, shooting and robbing. or more legitimatley and promising (if you can even say that) turns to playing basketball or rapping – disregarding academics and how minimal his or her chances are in actuallly making it to the nba or cutting a deal with sony records.

And all this after pointing the finger on the track “Got” off of Black on Both Sides:

This one goes to all them Big Will cats
With ice on they limbs and big rims on they Ac
You rollin’ round town with your system bumped
And your windows cracked low to profile and front
Now I like to have nice things just like you
But I’m from Brooklyn, certain shit you just don’t do

Thoughts? Post them in the comments here or at the original article at gotmilkfart.

This post is tagged: advertising, blogs, hip hop, mos def, rap.

This is sort of off-topic from a direct Mos Def info perspective, but it’s certainly something I think Mos Def would support spreading throughout the hip-hop community.

Michael over at Hip-Hop Blogs has put out a Hip-Hop Blogger Call to Arms, and he’s right on.

The hip hop blog community for example, provided a lot of the counter commentary to the Katrina disaster. With or without knowing it, we started and maintained a real discourse about real people who were experiencing real discrimination in one of the most embarrassing chapters of our nation’s short history. So whatever it is: politics, culture, music, hip hop- keep blogging.

Keep blogging…

This post is tagged: blogs, hip hop, katrina, mos def, politics, rap.