Bright, Black, Phenomenal

Mos Def is hip-hop’s Johnny Appleseed. He carries a small bag around with him that’s filled with hip-hop, dark, rich handfuls of it that smell like fresh soil and cut grass and tobacco, and when he starts pulling it out and spreading it around, kids begin popping and locking in double-dutch time, all cornrows and fades and Converse all-stars and fire hydrant fountains, and even the old folk start nodding their heads. Mos Def is that lazy beat that accompanies the ankle-breaking slow motion crossover, and the horns come in just as it leads to a dunk that Jordan would kill for; he’s the slow bass that follows steam escaping from sewer grates at night, the city a collection of reflections and shoulder-checks, always someone eying you up, dressing you down, for better or worse, a dollar in your pocket and fifty in your sock, a broken turn-light on a tricked-out Lincoln in a dark cul-de-sac, a hole in the chain-link fence and weeds between the rails as another car is tagged, another name thrown up, another hero for a day. He’s the guitar hook that introduces the new day, catching the sunrise peeking through skyscrapers from an apartment building’s rooftop, when the world is quiet enough to be yours alone for a few brief moments, and the guitar lick that lets you stop traffic with a look simply because you were walking there, fuck you, cabbie, I got places to be, too.

True magic is affecting change by imposing one’s will upon the universe. Mos Def is true magic.