Released: September 29, 1998

Songwriter: Talib Kweli Yasiin Bey

Producer: Talib Kweli J. Rawls

[Backing]
Yo, yeah
Yo, yeah
Yo, yeah
Yo, yo, yeah, yeah
[Repeated]

[Small girl]
Black is:
Black is something to laugh about
Black is something to cry about
Black is serious, black is a feeling
Black is us, the beautiful people

[Older woman]
That was when some of them bad niggas made beauty moving juju change as the drum musics hum!
Mojo vibrated and high Johns screamed through the bloods 'til Nomo hears the blood sounds
Nomo spoke intercourses and all the niggas listening acted missionaries too
Dig my people, they acted
The rhythms pulling their minds was one and move move moved
Universe-Earth spirits firing the soils to destroy the evil un-image
Cleanse the waste from the cold lands
Until the cosmos was whole again
And the world had become nude

[Older man]
3:30 in the morning with not a soul in sight
We sat four deep at a traffic light
Talking about how dumb and brainwashed some of our brothers and sisters are
While we waited for a green light to tell us when to 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.