History
2009 · Downtown DWT70055 · Brooklyn, New York
- Artist
- Mos Def
- Title
- History
- Release
- The Ecstatic
- Year
- 2009
- Label
- Downtown # DWT70055
- Format
- CD · Album
- Language
- English
- Country
- Brooklyn, New York, USA
- Genre
- Hip Hop · East Coast Hip Hop · Conscious Hip Hop
- Primary theme
- Post-War
Annotation — Rap / Hip Hop Songs
Mos Def, influential East Coast Hip Hop / Conscious Hip Hop artist, born Dante Terrell Smith on 11 December 1973 in Brooklyn, New York, USA, also a member of well-known duo group Black Star with Talib Kweli. He currently goes by the name Yasiin Bey. He referenced the Vietnam War in the following tracks: "Speed Law" (1999), "Get By" (2003) (with Kanye West, JAY-Z, Talib Kweli, and Busta Rhymes), and"History" (2009) (with Talib Kweli).Talib Kweli, East Coast Hip Hop / Conscious Hip Hop artist, born Talib Kweli Greene on 3 October 1975 in Brooklyn, New York, USA, member of Black Star with Mos Def. Songs referencing Vietnam included "Get By" (2003) (with Kanye West, JAY-Z, Mos Def, and Busta Rhymes), "Happy Home" (2007 (with Madlib), "History" (2009) (with Mos Def), and "Learn Truth" (2013) (with R.A. the Rugged Man).The song "History", a collaboration between Mos Def and Talib Kweli, recalled a key moment in the Vietnam conflict - the collapse of South Vietnam under US President Gerald R. Ford in 1975: "Ford was president... the war was ended when the North Vietnamese stormed the city of Saigon".
Annotation by Justin A. Brummer
Lyrics
English: The history, come on, every soul got wonder... / It's where you been and where you be / And without understanding you cannot proceed / Complete, the start and the end, then it just go round again, again, again and again / I was born in the decade of decadence / Where they worship what they have Ford was president / Do the math, the war was ended when the Vietnamese stormed the city of Saigon / We was like "Bye", we was gone, let bygones be bygones / I'm gone, spread love, it's the Brooklyn way / Where the hug you with the firearm side arm... / Powerful, bigotry I work, me and my people got history / These rappers dumb it down considerably / We "Get it Poppin'" like a hit chorus / The flow is historic / They can't get rid of us, you pick with us / And we lay the law like Leviticus, ten years ago we made history so they missing us
About the artist
Mos Def, influential East Coast Hip Hop / Conscious Hip Hop artist, born Dante Terrell Smith on 11 December 1973 in Brooklyn, New York, USA, also a member of well-known duo group Black Star with Talib Kweli. He currently goes by the name Yasiin Bey. He referenced the Vietnam War in the following tracks: "Speed Law" (1999), "Get By" (2003) (with Kanye West, JAY-Z, Talib Kweli, and Busta Rhymes.
Themes
Saigon · Fall of Saigon · Ford