''The New Danger'' is the second

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

by American rapper

Mos Def Yasiin Bey (; born Dante Terrell Smith, December 11, 1973), previously and more commonly known by his stage name Mos Def (), is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, and actor. His hip hop career began in 1994, alongside his siblings in the s ...

, released on October 12, 2004, by Rawkus and

Geffen Records Geffen Records is an American record label established by David Geffen and owned by Universal Music Group through its Interscope Geffen A&M Records imprint. Founded in 1980, Geffen Records has been a part of Interscope Geffen A&M since 1999 and h ...

. It is the follow-up to his breakthrough solo effort ''

Black on Both Sides ''Black on Both Sides'' is the debut solo studio album by American rapper Mos Def, released on October 12, 1999, by Rawkus and Priority Records. Prior to its recording, Mos Def had collaborated with Talib Kweli for the album '' Mos Def & Talib ...

'' (1999), after which he devoted more time into his film and stage career.

Production

Production for the album was handled by Mos Def,

Kanye West Ye ( ; born Kanye Omari West ; June 8, 1977) is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, and fashion designer. Born in Atlanta and raised in Chicago, West gained recognition as a producer for Roc-A-Fella Records in the ea ...

, 88 Keys, Minnesota,

Warryn Campbell Warryn Stafford Campbell, Jr. (born August 21, 1975) is an American record producer. He has worked with a number of gospel, hip hop and R&B artists. Campbell originally got his start as a session musician and producer under the tutelage of DJ ...

, and

Psycho Les The Beatnuts are an American hip hop group and production duo from New York City. Its current members are JuJu and Psycho Les. JuJu (born Jerry Tineo on December 14, 1968) is a Dominican American from Corona and Psycho Les (born Lester Fernande ...

. It also features contributions from Mos Def's rock musical project Black Jack Johnson, which was named after boxing champion Jack Johnson and consists of guitarist Dr. Know, keyboardist

Bernie Worrell George Bernard Worrell, Jr. (April 19, 1944 – June 24, 2016) was an American keyboardist and record producer best known as a founding member of Parliament-Funkadelic and for his work with Talking Heads. He is a member of the Rock and Roll ...

, bassist

Doug Wimbish Douglas Arthur Wimbish (born September 22, 1956) is an American bass player, primarily known for being a member of rock band Living Colour and funk/dub/hip hop collective Tackhead, and as a session musician with artists such as Sugarhill Gang ...

, and drummer

Will Calhoun William Calhoun (born July 22, 1964) is an American drummer who is a member of the rock band Living Colour. Career Calhoun was born in the Bronx, New York. He moved to Boston to attend the Berklee College of Music, where he graduated with a de ...

Critical reception

''The New Danger'' received generally mixed reviews from critics; it holds an aggregate score of 59 out of 100 at

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

."Critic Reviews for The New Danger"

. Retrieved on 2009-09-25. ''

Blender A blender (sometimes called a mixer or liquidiser in British English) is a kitchen appliance, kitchen and laboratory appliance used to mix, crush, purée or emulsion, emulsify food and other substances. A stationary blender consists of a blender ...

'' called it "mushily sentimental, self-righteously indignant and constantly in your face", while

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

's Andy Kellman said it was "a sprawling, overambitious mess". '' New York'' magazine panned the album as "an unsatisfying muddle of protest music, black rock, and rap". In ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'',

Kelefa Sanneh Kelefa T. Sanneh (born 1976) is an American journalist and music critic. From 2000 to 2008, he wrote for ''The New York Times'', covering the rock and roll, hip-hop, and pop music scenes. Since 2008 he has been a staff writer for ''The New Yorke ...

wrote that the record suffered from extended soul songs that meandered, dull rock songs, and some raps such as "The Rape Over" that were devoid of Mos Def's usual "warmth and wit". ''

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...

'' deemed some of the songs failed experiments but also highlighted "Boogie Man Song", "Modern Marvel", and "Champion Requiem" as more timeless material. ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...

'' critic

Tom Moon Thomas Raphael Moon (born November 3, 1960) is an American saxophonist, author, and music critic. He is known for his book ''1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die''. He has won two Deems Taylor Awards from the American Society of Composers, Auth ...

was more enthusiastic, hailing the album as an "earthy, impressively diverse" work that showcased Mos Def's abilities to "create deeply nuanced characterizations" and "broaden the hip-hop palette without sacrificing, or selling out, its core ideals". Writing for ''

The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the crea ...

'', Robert Christgau said while Mos Def's previous records were driven by his "verbal flow", ''The New Danger'' was more interesting musically and defined by its sonic flow, which the critic described as "a shadowy, guitar-drenched

tone poem A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music, usually in a single continuous movement, which illustrates or evokes the content of a poem, short story, novel, painting, landscape, or other (non-musical) source. The German term ''T ...

of the streets". In his ballot for the annual

Pazz & Jop Pazz & Jop was an annual poll of top musical releases, compiled by American newspaper ''The Village Voice'' and created by music critic Robert Christgau. It published lists of the year's top releases for 1971 and, after Christgau's two-year abs ...

critics poll, he named it the 19th best album of 2004. ''

LA Weekly ''LA Weekly'' is a free weekly alternative newspaper in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1978 by Jay Levin, who served as president and editor until 1991. Voice Media Group sold the paper in late 2017 to Semanal Media LLC, whose paren ...

'' included the track "Zimzallabim" in their list of "Ten Rap-Rock Songs That Are Actually Awesome".

Commercial performance

''The New Danger'' was released by

on October 12, 2004, in the United States and October 18 in the United Kingdom. It debuted at number five on the ''Billboard'' 200 in its first week, and by March 2014, it had sold 513,000 copies in the US. In August 2017, the album was certified gold by the RIAA, indicating sales and their equivalents—

streams A stream is a continuous body of water, body of surface water Current (stream), flowing within the stream bed, bed and bank (geography), banks of a channel (geography), channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a stream ...

and track downloads—of 500,000 units in the U.S.

Track listing

Notes: The UK Edition bonus track is also featured on his 2007 compilation album, ''Mos Definite''.

Charts

;Singles

Certifications

Personnel

- vocals, piano (track 1), drums (tracks 1 and 16), guitar, bass and percussion (track 16) * Black Jack Johnson - House Band (feat.

- drums,

- bass, Dr. Know - guitar and

- keyboard) *

Raphael Saadiq Raphael Saadiq (; born Charles Ray Wiggins; May 14, 1966) is an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer. He rose to fame as a member of the multiplatinum group Tony! Toni! Toné! In addition to his solo and group ...

- guitar and bass (track 1) * Minnesota - producer *

Easy Mo Bee Osten Harvey Jr. (born December 8, 1965), better known by his stage name Easy Mo Bee, is an American hip hop and R&B record producer, known for his production work for artists such as Big Daddy Kane and Miles Davis, as well as his affiliatio ...

- producer *

Shuggie Otis Johnny Shuggie Otis (born Johnny Alexander Veliotes, Jr.; November 30, 1953) is an American singer-songwriter, recording artist, and multi-instrumentalist. Otis's composition "Strawberry Letter 23" (as recorded by The Brothers Johnson) topped ...

- guitar * L Mitchellon (?) - piano, organ *

- producer * Psycho Les - producer *

88-Keys Charles Misodi Njapa (born March 5, 1976), better known by his stage name 88-Keys, is an American record producer and rapper from New York City. Biography Born in New York City to West African parents from Cameroon, he was raised in the Eastches ...

- producer

References

External links

*
The New Danger
' at

Discogs Discogs (short for discographies) is a database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. While the site was originally created with a goal of becoming the la ...

Review and audio interview
at ''

Vibe ''Vibe'' is an American music and entertainment magazine founded by producers David Salzman and Quincy Jones. The publication predominantly features R&B and hip hop music artists, actors and other entertainers. After shutting down producti ...

'' {{DEFAULTSORT:New Danger, The 2004 albums Mos Def albums Albums produced by Easy Mo Bee Albums produced by Kanye West Albums produced by Raphael Saadiq Albums produced by Warryn Campbell Albums produced by 88-Keys Cultural depictions of Jack Johnson