Black on Both Sides is the debut solo studio album by American rapper Yasiin Bey, then known as Mos Def, released on October 12, 1999, by Rawkus and Priority Records.
The album features a mix between established and rising producers. DJ Premier provides the instrumental track for "Mathematics". Diamond D is credited for "Hip Hop". Ali Shaheed Muhammad, known mostly as a member of A Tribe Called Quest, produced the seventh song "Got". Psycho Les of The Beatnuts produced "New World Water" and "Rock N Roll". Jazz legend Weldon Irvine provided additional production to "Climb".
Ayatollah produced "Ms. Fat Booty" and "Know That". 88-Keys produced "Love" and "Speed Law" and co-produced the instrumental outro『May–December』with Bey himself. David Kennedy (the second swing of "Brooklyn" and "Umi Says" produced with Bey), Mr. Khaliyl ("Do It Now"), DJ Etch-A-Sketch ("Climb" and "Habitat"), Ge-ology (The first swing of "Brooklyn") and D. Prosper ("Mr. Nigga") round out the other contributors.
Bey received production assistance on most of the album's tracks. His sole production credit comes at "Fear Not of Man", but he provided additional production to four tracks ("Hip Hop", "Rock N Roll", "Climb" and "Mr. Nigga") and co-produced three ("Umi Says", "Brooklyn" and "May–December").
On the song "Brooklyn", a three-movement piece dedicated to Mos's neighborhood in Bedford-Stuyvesant, New York, Bey rhymes three verses over three different beats. The first beat is an original composition produced by Ge-ology, while the second verse is a re-creation Smif-N-Wessun's "Home Sweet Home" and the last verse is set to the instrumental track of The Notorious B.I.G.'s 1995 single "Who Shot Ya?". Originally, Bey rhymed three complete verses over Ge-ology's musical composition, now referred to as the first movement of the song. On a later version, the first and third verses are set to the instrumentals of two other 1995 New York rap hits, "Incarcerated Scarfaces" by Raekwon as well as "Give Up the Goods (Just Step)" by Mobb Deep, respectively. The "Who Shot Ya?" verse, with the same vocal take on the released version, is placed in the middle. Bey sings his own interpretation of the Red Hot Chili Peppers song "Under the Bridge".
Black on Both Sides received universal acclaim from critics. Matt Diehl of Entertainment Weekly praised the album's diversity and noted, "Merging old-school bravado with new-school poetics, the Brooklyn legend spouts incisive Afrocentric reality that takes all sides into account."[8] Dan Leroy of Yahoo! Music opined that "Not since Rakim's heyday has a mic-rocker so clearly articulated such complex and entertaining thoughts, with the ability to wax eloquently on matters metaphysical ('Love') and just plain physical ('Ms. Fat Booty')" and hailed the album as "a sure pick as one of the year's best."[1]
The Independent lauded the record's "sharp reflections on a range of subjects from parochialism to pollution, fear to fat booties, rap to rock 'n' roll" and wrote that Black on Both Sides "stands as a proud example of the heights hip-hop can achieve when its exponents put their minds to it."[3]The Village Voice'sRobert Christgau wrote that while he felt the album ran too long, "the wealth of good-hearted reflection and well-calibrated production overwhelms one's petty objections".[15] In a retrospective review, Charles AaronofSpin described Bey as a "restless B-Boy citizen of the world" and called the album "playful, witty, and heart-pounding."[14]
^[b] The song consists of three distinct movements. The first one was produced by Ge-ology, the second by David Kennedy and Yasiin Bey, and the third one by Bey
Sample credits
"Fear Not of Man" contains samples of "Fear Not for Man", written and performed by Fela Kuti; and "Morgenspaziergang", written by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider, and performed by Kraftwerk.
"Hip Hop" contains samples of "The Warnings (Part II)", written by David Axelrod and Michael Thomas Axelrod, and performed by David Axelrod; and "Slow Dance", written and performed by Stanley Clarke; and an interpolation of "Spoonin Rap", written and performed by Spoonie Gee.
"Speed Law" contains samples of "And That's Saying a Lot", written by Chuck Jackson and Walter Godfrey, and performed by Christine McVie; and "Promise Her Anything but Give Her Arpeggio", written by David Schallock, and performed by Big Brother & the Holding Company.
"Do It Now" contains a sample of "Marcus Garvey", written by Winston Rodney, and performed by Burning Spear.
"Rock N Roll" contains a sample of "Memphis at Sunrise", written by Allen Jones and Jerome McLaughlin, and performed by Bar-Kays.
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