Bey has taken on different production styles with nearly every album since his seminal Black On Both Sides from 20 years ago. It’s difficult to comprehensively review the music of Negus: Yasiin Bey usually creates music that demands multiple listens, not only to discover the lyrical nooks and crannies but to get accustomed to the sound. Ebtekar, Mehretu, and Parla all created their pieces specifically for the installation after Bey played the album for them. Another piece is a collaboration between Bey and Jose Parla, which Bey described to Zelaya as “the beginning of a story that was never told.” And on the other wall, are two pieces by Julie Mehretu. On the opposite wall is a starry, celestial piece by Ala Ebetekar. According to a press release for the exhibit, negus (pronounced neh-goose) means “king” or “ruler” in Ge’ez, “an ancient Semitic language of Ethiopia.” (Kendrick Lamar used the term on “i” from To Pimp A Butterfly.) Yasiin uses the word to refer to noble figures, and the presumed centerpiece of the exhibition is a giant textile mural that has an embedded photo of the late Nipsey Hussle and visual renderings of the cells of Henrietta Lacks, a black cancer patient whose unique cells were taken without her consent and used as the basis for billions of dollars of medical research and biotechnology. He then presented the album as an art installation at art fairs in Morocco, Dubai, and Hong Kong the Brooklyn Museum exhibit is the first time it’s available for public consumption, and it has a tracklist and visual element unique to Brooklyn. Yasiin Bey originally recorded Negus in London in 2015 with producers Lord Tusk, Steven Julien, and ACyde, with raps he had written a few years prior.
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