Mos Def - The New Danger is out and it's quite amazing, actually. Far from a hip-hop album, there are elements of blues, rock, downtempo groove, along with Mr. Def's incredible wordsmith flow. As my man B Derl says, "He's out to redefine hip-hop... break free of the stagnancy of the standard beats and rhymes albums and make something new and original. Of course there will be some haters out there that will find a reason not to like this album -- they'll bitch about the lack of b-boy rhymes on some tracks, the lack of beats/samples on others, the Bad Brains vibe on others, the singing on others, etc. Whatever.
Point is that people will try to find a reason to hate and in doing so they will completely miss the point. This isn't about hip hop or rap or categories or labels. This is about incredible music. Only been listeing to this for one day so it's a bit early to be saying this, but I think this album shows a lot of the ultimate potential and possibilities that exist for music. It's an example of why listeners and musicians need to be out there embracing change and ambitious, challenging music instead of falling back on the mainstream formulaic scenes that the public and the media have deemed to be worthy of praise in any particular genre."
So check it out, in either explicit or edited versions. - tk