At least “Ghetto Rock,” a collaboration with Black Jack Johnson, has cajones-stinging electric-blues licks overlaid with playground verses-but its repetitive riff drives the point home long before the song is over.

Sensitive and brooding, sure, but “Boogie Man Song” sounds like something those white folks in Six Degrees of Separation might play on their stereo.

The New Danger gets off to a rocky start, as Def channels “King of Pain”-era Sting. So, can Mos Def, the award-winning actor, reconcile his success with Mos Def, the bitter rapper? The answer, I’m afraid, is “seldom.” For five long years, Def forsook the microphone for the spotlight, with the exception of a few gigs with his rock outfit, Black Jack Johnson. The Brooklyn native then refocused his attention on acting, starring in blockbusters like Monster’s Ball and Brown Sugar, before making his Broadway debut in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Top Dog/Underdog. Def’s ’99 solo album, Black on Both Sides, proved he possessed both the acumen and vision needed for a high-stakes spitting contest and the diversity-specifically, forays into reggae and rock-to place him ahead of the pack. DuBois.Īlthough he dropped his rhymes on other rappers’ records (most notably De La Soul’s “Big Brother Beat”), Def’s talent didn’t fully emerge until he teamed with Talib Kweli for 1998’s Black Star, a combination of social commentary and old-school beats.

Mos Def, who initially made his mark as an actor, has always moved in the latter direction, shunning the low-life approach for an intellectual and socially conscious spew worthy of W.E.B. Now, more than ever, hip-hop seems to be on a divergent path: Half its practitioners are thugging and mugging, while others-led by The Roots and OutKast-opt for the high road by adding actual instrumentation to the mix.

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