Mos Def — True Magic

The reason David Blaine became so famous as a magician was his unflappable focus. When he takes on a challenge, he lives, breathes and thinks of nothing but. Mos Def's True Magic suffers from the opposite. After a highly panned experimentation with rock-rap, Mos returns to his Black On Both Sides roots for this buried-in-the-holiday-rush release. The problem is that you can practically envision the groundbreaking rapper half-heartedly writing lyrics in a movie set trailer one minute while memorizing his lines for 16 Blocks the next. There are some decent beats, but Mos just doesn't sound like he cares either way if the LP flies or dies. After all, that Italian Job 2 pay cheque is worth millions more than album sales.