Why was Mos Def's career such a disappointment?

[KingDanz]

Also he did one of those “exclusive albums” that are only available to listen to in certain museums around the world.

It was called Negus.


So he hasn’t stopped making music he just found another hustle for it

 

[mitter]

Let's hold it right there. I'm known to be 100% on point with everything I say that isn't an outright prank thread. And nothing I'm saying about Mos is even remotely exaggerated. He's good kid/child actor who put on a persona and got lost in it, lost himself to severe alcoholism, was trying to fukk everything moving, and squandered his talent. Not s single bit of that is unknown to anyone on that scene.

Ok Walt, my apologies

 

[The_Third_Man]

I've seen Mos Def live a couple of times. He didn't care enough to prepare for the show. He'd rather fukk around and talk with the crowd than perform his songs.

I don't think he was focused on the music.

 

[Walt]

Ok Walt, my apologies

It ain't personal dog, just setting the record straight. My track record speaks for itself. Just about everything I've said on this forum has been verified with the passing of time (drake's ghostwriters, kanye being a megalomaniac who uses the talents of other people and is similar to Trump in being a brand, Hulk Hogan being erased from the WWE for a n-word scandal, Tim Dog being a wild conniving nikka, and many more) or by people from this site who know me via social media and have seen my pics with some of these rappers in casual scenarios, and my connections to thorough street nikkas in my family and industry peoples etc. I don't just say speculative shyt. I mean, I legit knew about all the people making kanye's music mad years ago. I've known about Rick Rubin's racism forever. I know all kinds of shyt about a lot of people in the industry because I've been adjacent to these scenes. Mos actually tried to kick it to several women I knew when they were underage. But personal experience isn't even needed here, Dante's degeneracy is an open secret, and much of it with women is well documented. That's why he fled the damn country.

 

[ball15life]

Just had this convo with my boys...one of them (who can be pretentious) tried to straight face tell me that he is just as good now as he was at the beginning, and that I don't see that because I don't like his new music .....



.....no breh, he's not the same



He FLOATED all over BlackStar and Black on Both Sides....two of my favorite hip hop albums.



The ecstatic was underrated IMO


I kinda tend to think his career ended after that. It makes me feel better

 

[Lucky_Lefty]

The Derrick Coleman of hip hop

 

[SoulController]

The Ecstatic was insanely good for being 10+ years in

...but there was mad bullshyt in between, and nothing since. shame

 

[Atsym Sknyfs]

He burst onto the scene in 1998 with the Blackstar album, then followed it up the next year with an even stronger solo debut, Black on Both Sides.

The anticipation for BOBS was crazy, and yet he somehow met (maybe even exceeded) expectations and delivered a classic.

On top of that, Mos seemed to be everywhere from 98-00, dropping dope guest verses.


I really thought he was going to be delivering great music and making a huge impact for years to come.





Instead, he seemed to get weirder as time passed, and his presence was sporadic at best.



What happened?

MOS was around before black star.. this was my joint

 

[Apollo Kid]

I just watched an interview he did with Kweli last year. His speech seemed to have slowed down? Alcohol, drugs?



The Ecstatic was a great album. A damn shame what happened to his career. He was my favorite MC from the late 90's to early 2000's

 

[x-factor7]

I always got the impression he didn’t really want to be a star like that. That was right around the time Jay reached his superstar status and he probably didn’t want any parts of that.

I read a quote somewhere, can’t remember where, from Jimmy Iovine who told Mos that if he gave him another album like BOBS, he’d “take him to the moon”.

Then we get “New Danger”. Which was left of center and threw a lot of fans for a loop. Mostly a disappointment at the time. Seems like he did that intentionally. Next album was True Magic which didn’t even have a cover. It was seemed like Mos wanted to stay being an artist’s artist rather than a star. Just my theory.

Agree with this. If he comes out with a follow up to BOBS around 2002 when Rawkus was at it's peak, he most likely blows up and easily goes platinum. He had pretty much all the elements to become a superstar.

 

[The Guru]

The thing is he has the style as an artist to be better at an older age. I want to see it.

 

[feelosofer]

Mos Def is arguably the most talented rapper to pick up a mic on top of that Mos is a really laid back guy so he's not trying to push out an album every year or two. But with that said he's had a great discography for the most part.

 

[Awesome Wells]

Mos is/was one of my favorite MC's.

So I can get why people would say his career fell short. I thought he would do a lot more with it too, but I'm happy with the music he's done so far. The white label and unreleased shyt he was doing with Shawn J Period pre-Black on Both Sides, was really what made me think dude was about to drop one of the best albums ever. He was pretty much the perfect MC, to me. He didn't lack anything on the mic. But he seemed to be more focused on acting at a point when we all wanted him to drop more music. And I think that's what might have killed his motivation and momentum.

 

[Shadow King]

Let's hold it right there. I'm known to be 100% on point with everything I say that isn't an outright prank thread. And nothing I'm saying about Mos is even remotely exaggerated. He's good kid/child actor who put on a persona and got lost in it, lost himself to severe alcoholism, was trying to fukk everything moving, and squandered his talent. Not s single bit of that is unknown to anyone on that scene.

So the conscious/pro-black persona isn't him?

 

[Lucky_Lefty]

Chopped it up with Mos when he was in SA running from child support payments and I came away from talking to him, he cares NOTHING about music anymore. He’s in that 3Stacks portion of life