Black Star

After the murders of The Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur, the state of hip-hop music was slightly ravaged with East Coast vs West Coast feuds and individuals who believed that violence held the path to salvation. This fervor that existed in the rap world only served to bring about a reaction to the disorder. Many hip-hop artists were tired of squabbling about ungrounded conflicts. Instead of rhyming about gang-banging and causing bodily harm to other rappers, they decided to rise above the occasion and fill the lyrics in their songs with topics about community building, amicable interactions and intellectual enrichment. Two such rappers were Mos Def and Talib Kweli, who came together under the guise of Black Star. Based out of New York, the group released its first album in 1998 and the LP helped set the stage for the evolution of the modern conscious hip-hop movement.