I think these are two reasons why we love him. Dig him digging on Doom. And then dig him just murdering "Two Words." "
These streets, No Game. Can't ball, Don't Play\Heavy traffic, one way, Everybody move..." The best summary of New York, I've ever heard. And of life in general.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
I don't know how much Doom should pay Mos Def for that endorsement, but it wouldn't be enough.
"Tinseltown to the Boogiedown," a song off of Scritti Politti's Anomie & Bonhomie album, remains my favorite Mos Def cut. And having Mos Def, Lee Majors, and Green Gartside together on a track? Brilliant.
Although Freeway, who obviously didn't get the memo on the theme to "Two Words", best answers the question which one of these is not like the other. My two on what he does to this track would be, almost ruined.
That aside, the violin following him more than makes up for it. Everybody move...
Mos Def at his best.
No doubt... That problem was going around at the Roc (looking at you, jigga)
I can't listen to Kayne but Two Words = MoS Def. Pure brilliance.
As soon as Hitch came out on the show I switched to something else because I knew what was gonna happen. It don't even matter. My opinion of Hitch is that he's still a dick and well Mos is still the greatest freestyle MC IMHO. Period.
Classic Mos about Hip Hop from Black on Both:
"Stimulant and sedative, original repetitive
Violently competitive, a school unacredited
The break beats you get broken with
on time and inappropriate
Hip Hop went from selling crack to smoking it
Medicine for loneliness
Remind me of Thelonius and Dizzy
Propers to B-Boys getting busy
The war-time snap shot
The working man's jack-pot
A two dollar snack box
Sold beneath the crack spot
Olympic spnosor of the black glock
Gold medalist in the back shot
From the sovereign state of the have-nots
Where farmers have trouble with cash crops (woooo)
It's all city like phase two
Hip Hop will simply amaze you
Craze you, pay you
Do whatever you say do
But black, it can't save you"
And that would be some of the illest shit ever wrote...
I always loved (and still do) Mos as an MC especially when he's going off like on these two tracks (and so many others). The more selfish side of me wishes he did only that and left all the other stuff alone.
What's with the rumor about Mos Def collaborating with Glenn Beck for his next CD?
Glenn Beck is paralyzed from the neck up and belongs in a straitjacket.
Before Beck is committed to a psych ward, I want to see a bloggingheads segment featuring Mos Def and Beck.
These streets know game....
lyrical correctness is key
with Mos it's all about the words that aren't there... alot of time, he speaks in complete sentences, but chopped up. So this one is:
These streets know game so if you can't ball then don't play.
Obviously the full blow'd up version lacks a certain flow, so Mighty Mos streamlines it to the bones. His style like Spanish in that way.
I agree, thus the title "Two Words". Just the use of two word stanzas that convey a whole, complete thought is truly poetic. No one does it like Mos. You'll never convince that although this track is on Kanye's joint, I'll bet anything that Mos was the creative impetus for this song and the way it was presented(minus freakin Freeway of course).
Right. Because it couldn't possibly be...
"These streets (ARE) no game, (So if you) can't ball (then) don't play..."
Great art works on all kinds of levels. It could be either interpretation. Why is one more right than the other? The last thing hip-hop needs is "lyrical correctness." Or correctness of any kind.
Well put. I can definitely agree with that.
"His style like Spanish in that way."
I love that line. I'm copping it.
I recently rediscovered "B-Boy Document '99," which is THE song (along with Jurassic 5's "Action Satisfaction," but lets not go there) that got me to rap music. It still kills.
DOOM is always all caps, bruh.
TNC,
Where is the post on the new DOOM? Have you heard it yet? -HR
Just to tie the thread that connect Mos and DOOM and Mos's appearance on Bill Maher (before the embarrassing online extra portion):
"It cost billions to blast humans in half / Into calves and arms, only one side is allowed to have bombs / That's like making a soldier drop his weapon / Shootin' him, and tellin' him to get to steppin'"
Obviously, they came to portion up his fortune
Looks to me like that old robbery\extortion...
I think if you took Glenn Beck to court he'd be his own star witness.
I think comparing De La Soul to Steely Dan may be the smartest thing I've heard anyone say about them ever.
i had no idea there was a video for Two Words!
This is the Mos I love. I wish he would act and speak in public engagements the way he does in private like this. The last few years he's been getting caught up in pushing back and posturing. It's a bad look, but we know the real Mos is better than that.