Synopsis

Mos Def and Talib Kweli take their message to the streets of Brooklyn in a loose, documentary-style ride through the borough. Traveling in a dollar van, the duo performs among neighborhood landmarks, friends, and fellow artists while presenting hip-hop as a communal force rather than a vehicle for violence or ego. The appearance of guests including Common and dead prez strengthens the video's sense of movement and solidarity. Its grounded, location-based style matches the song's celebration of Brooklyn and its call for an end to violence in hip-hop.

Factoids & Trivia

• The video uses a Brooklyn dollar van as its central setting. Talib Kweli later recalled taking similar vans to school as a teenager, making the vehicle an especially fitting detail for a song rooted in local identity.

• Common and dead prez appear among the passengers and participants, turning the van into a moving snapshot of the late-1990s New York conscious-rap scene.

• The song's refrain directly addresses the murders of Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. The video's communal street setting contrasts with that violence, presenting hip-hop as a shared culture that can protect and unite its artists.

• "Definition" was Black Star's first single and became an underground success. It reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot Rap Singles chart, No. 31 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks chart, and No. 60 on the Billboard Hot 100.

• Hi-Tek built the track around a sample of Boogie Down Productions' "The P Is Free." The chorus also interpolates BDP's anti-violence track "Stop the Violence," connecting Black Star's message to an earlier hip-hop campaign against violence.

• The video is frequently remembered as an early visual document of the Brooklyn-centered Rawkus Records movement, capturing the informal, neighborhood-based energy that helped distinguish Black Star from more polished mainstream rap videos of the period.