Before he started doing movies and stopped caring about music. Evidence (from "Twice Inna Lifetime, off the Black Star album):
Black body radiation
Situation that we workin' wit'
My verb exists, enlisted by the bogus,
Can't reservicce this,
The purpose is,
To make you go and purchase this,
No nervousness
We are,
Hot like black tar,
Black Star with the murderin'
Superlative,
You're fabricated like the word "absurditive"
I'm rockin this from here to where the Persians live
From Brooklyn where the merchants live
Next door to the murderers
And bourbon is
an elder man's medicinal alternative
My memory is furnished with
Back streets to back seats of fat Jeeps
Legendary athletes
Who played by the trash heap
My crew wasn't that deep,
But beef we didn't act sweet
Treadin' on these stompin grounds
You better catch some black feet
Flashy, it was between DeKalb and Pulasky
Off the meter like an out of borough taxi
Then run your pockets fastly,
black and nasty, nappy and crafty
That's why they either sittin' in Clinton or Kaksaki
Mayor Rudolph can screw off
You too soft to stop us
You and your coppers
should see some foot doctors
Got your burnt chest popped up
but keep your guns cocked up
Cuz all them cats that you knocked up
ain't always gon' be locked up
Hot stuff like Donna Summer,
Another number one
And comin' from the underground,
This is how it's comin' down
Baby let me run it down,
Mos Def, Talib Kweli,
Jane Doe, Punch, Words..
umm..ee!
Excuse me!
Just ate another emcee!
Sometimes that's just how it be
Partner wash you down with green tea
And some lime
We like the five on the fist
Fortified,
Organized like this