No Words Define Your Legacy

Mr. Muthafuckin’ eXquire “Black Mirror”

Mr. Muthafuckin’ eXquire is a tremendously versatile rapper, as adept with over-the-top raunch and bravado as he is with aggressive political music or more introspective and philosophical work. “Black Mirror” is in the third category, with him reflecting on his childhood in Bed-Stuy, the physical and psychological tortures that Black slaves endured in America, and as he puts it in his own description of the song on Bandcamp, “Black masculinity and the role males play in the growth of younger men.” His performance matches the wistful tone of MadLib’s track, which recuts an old Stylistics track into melancholy abstraction. The second half of the song is a tribute to eXquire’s late uncle, a man he credits with setting him on the course of becoming a rapper. He’s clearly in awe of the man but doesn’t portray him as some untouchable hero but rather as a complicated person who taught him to respect himself and take pride in what he does. This could easily just be pure sentimentality, but eXquire ties together all these thoughts to arrive at a core theme: Pride is important, and it has to be modeled and passed down somehow.

Buy it from Bandcamp.