Mos Dub is a mashup

Mashup (music)

A mashup or bootleg is a song or composition created by blending two or more pre-recorded songs, usually by overlaying the vocal track of one song seamlessly over the instrumental track of another...

 album of Mos Def

Mos Def

Dante Terrell Smith is an American actor and Emcee known by the stage names Mos Def and Yasiin Bey. He started his hip hop career in a group called Urban Thermo Dynamics, after which he appeared on albums by Da Bush Babees and De La Soul. With Talib Kweli, he formed the duo Black Star, which...

 and various classic reggae

Reggae

Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...

 samples that was mixed and produced by New York producer Max Tannone

Max Tannone

Max Tannone, formerly known as Minty Fresh Beats, is a New York music producer most notable for his production of mashup music.-Early life and career:...

. The album was officially released to download on April 6th, 2010.

Style

Editing tracks from popular dub music, like King Tubby

King Tubby

King Tubby was a Jamaican electronics and sound engineer, known primarily for his influence on the development of dub in the 1960s and 1970s...

, Lee Perry, Scientist

Scientist (musician)

Scientist, born Hopeton Brown in Kingston, Jamaica, 1960 , was a protégé of King Tubby , one of the originators of dub music.-Biography:...

, The Slickers

The Slickers

The Slickers were a Jamaican rocksteady and reggae group in the late 1960s and early 1970s.They are best known for the song, "Johnny Too Bad", which featured on the film soundtrack of The Harder They Come, and which was sung with additional lyrics by John Martyn on his Grace and Danger album.The...

, Johnny Osbourne

Johnny Osbourne

Johnny Osbourne is a popular Jamaican reggae and dancehall singer, who rose to success in the late 1970s and mid 1980s. His album Truths and Rights was a notable roots reggae success, and featured "Jah Promise" and the album's title track, "Truths and Rights"...

, Big Youth

Big Youth

Manley Augustus Buchanan , better known as Big Youth , is a Jamaican deejay, mostly known for his work during the 1970s....

 and Dawn Penn

Dawn Penn

Dawn Penn is a Jamaican reggae singer.-Career:Dawn Penn's earliest recordings were for Prince Buster around 1966. In 1967 she recorded and released the rocksteady single, "You Don't Love Me" produced by Coxsone Dodd at Studio One...

, and laying the acapella tracks from Mos Def, Tannone has created a unique atmosphere where both Brooklyn

Brooklyn

Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...

 Hip hop and Jamaican reggae have been mixed seamlessly. The tracks have been described, in a positive way, as not sounding like part of a mashup, and Mos Def's raps as fitting over the music naturally.

Mos Dub was released as a free download on April 6th, 2010, off of the official Mos Dub website. There is also an unofficial vinyl release of the album.

Tannone released a followup to Mos Dub, called Dub Kweli

Dub Kweli

-External links:* Official website of...

.

Reception

Critics have generally viewed the album positively. David James Young of Sputnikmusic

Sputnikmusic

Sputnikmusic, or simply Sputnik, is a music website offering music criticism and music news alongside features commonly associated with wiki-style websites...

 stated that "...Mos Dub has the perfect sound, runtime, and lyrical content to make for a great summer car-ride CD". New York

New York (magazine)

New York is a weekly magazine principally concerned with the life, culture, politics, and style of New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to The New Yorker, it was brasher and less polite than that magazine, and established itself as a cradle of New...

 described the album as "perfect summer BBQ music." MTV Music

MTV Music

MTV Music is a video/music sharing website launched on October 28, 2008 by MTV. The website offers a large collection of music videos that date back to the early 1980s...

 tweeted

Twitter

Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...

 about the album. Hip-hop site Okayplayer

Okayplayer

Okayplayer.com is an online hip-hop and alternative music website and community, described by Rolling Stone as a "tastemaker" and "an antidote to dull promotional Web sites used by most artists". The group was co-founded by The Roots' drummer Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson as a loose musical...

 described the album as "dope." Adam Horovitz, also known as Ad-Rock of the Beastie Boys

Beastie Boys

Beastie Boys are an American hip hop trio from New York City. The group consists of Mike D who plays the drums, MCA who plays the bass, and Ad-Rock who plays the guitar....

 gave his approval of the album on the day of its release in his personal blog. Also, it has been said that the album is pleasing to fans of reggae music as well.

Not all reviews have been positive; Vice

Vice (magazine)

VICE is a free magazine and media conglomerate founded in Montreal, Quebec and currently based in New York City.Vice is available in 27 countries...

 stated that Mos Dub was an album that "the world doesn’t really need".

Tracklist

External links

• Official website of Mos Dub