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IntroBlack Star

Released: August 26, 1998

Songwriter: Talib Kweli Yasiin Bey

Producer: Hi-Tek Talib Kweli

[Vocal sample from male announcer]
We feel that we have a responsibility to... shine the light... into the darkness. You know there's a lot of darkness out here. We watch it all the time. I'm busy lookin' at the darkness sayin' "Damn, there's some darkness over there." Whatever. And we have a responsibility to focus on it. You know, ya'll be kool. We know that we know how to make some music and that music ain't supposed to stand still...

[Talib Kweli]
It's like that. Mos Def and Kweli. (Black Star... guide me... Black Star... Black Star)
It's like that. Mos Def and Kweli. (Black Star)

[Mos Def]
We know where the real life documentarians are. Who? Of course the mighty Mos Def is a real life documentarian. Talib Kweli... real life documentarian

[Vocal sample from male announcer]
Anyhow, the statements that they make will determine what everybody else plays very shortly. Ya dig? And that's the way it goes. So here we go!

Black Star

Black Star consists of Yasiin Bey and Talib Kweli and they arose from the underground movement of the late 1990s. They released one self-titled album. Though the record achieved little commercial success, they (and other members of the Native Tongues Posse) helped shape underground alternative rap and helped bring it further into the mainstream eye. Both have gone on to greater commercial and critical success in separate solo careers.

Black Star’s emergence into the hip-hop scene came at a crucial point in music history. Following the deaths of both Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur, hip-hop was consumed in a world of chaos. Black Star attempted to bring reconciliation in the wake of these violent deaths.

In a talk with Rap Genius' SameOldShawn, Talib Kweli explains the influence Yasiin Bey had on him as a young hip-hop artist.

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