1st Born Second is the debut album

Studio album

A studio album is an album made up of tracks recorded in the controlled environment of a recording studio. A studio album contains newly written and recorded or previously unreleased or remixed material, distinguishing itself from a compilation or reissue album of previously recorded material, or...

 of American neo soul

Neo soul

The term neo soul was originally coined by Kedar Massenburg of Motown Records in the late 1990s as a marketing category following the commercial breakthroughs of artists such as D'Angelo, Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill, and Maxwell...

 musician Bilal, released July 17, 2001 on Interscope Records

Interscope Records

Interscope Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group that currently operates as one third of UMG's Interscope-Geffen-A&M label group.-History:...

. Production for the album was handled primarily by Bilal and Aaron Comess. Bilal's mononymous stage name also serves as an acronym for "Beloved, Intelligent, Lustful and Livin' It". Bilal was trained in jazz and classical music before recording and joining the Soulquarians

Soulquarians

The Soulquarians is a neo soul and hip hop-informed musical collective with members from Philadelphia, New York, Detroit, Richmond, Brooklyn, Chicago, Dallas, and Oakland. The collective formed during the late 1990s, continuing into the early 2000s, and produced several well-received albums...

 collective, which contributed in producing the album. 1st Born Second features an eclectic sound incorporates musical elements of jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

, hip hop

Hip hop music

Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...

, scat

Scat singing

In vocal jazz, scat singing is vocal improvisation with wordless vocables, nonsense syllables or without words at all. Scat singing gives singers the ability to sing improvised melodies and rhythms, to create the equivalent of an instrumental solo using their voice.- Structure and syllable choice...

, reggae

Reggae

Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...

, and rock music

Rock music

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

. Upon its release, the album achieved moderate sales success and received general acclaim from most music critics.

Reception

The album peaked at number 31 on the U.S. Billboard 200

Billboard 200

The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...

 chart, and it has sold 319,000 copies. 1st Born Second received general acclaim from most music critics, based on an aggregate score of 82/100 from Metacritic

Metacritic

Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...

. The album earned rave reviews from publications, including The Village Voice

The Village Voice

The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...

, Chicago Sun-Times

Chicago Sun-Times

The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...

, and USA Today

USA Today

USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...

, and it also received comparisons to the music of Marvin Gaye

Marvin Gaye

Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. , better known by his stage name Marvin Gaye, was an American singer-songwriter and musician with a three-octave vocal range....

, Stevie Wonder

Stevie Wonder

Stevland Hardaway Morris , better known by his stage name Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and activist...

, Sly & the Family Stone

Sly & the Family Stone

Sly and the Family Stone were an American rock, funk, and soul band from San Francisco, California. Active from 1966 to 1983, the band was pivotal in the development of soul, funk, and psychedelic music...

, Prince

Prince (musician)

Prince Rogers Nelson , often known simply as Prince, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Prince has produced ten platinum albums and thirty Top 40 singles during his career. Prince founded his own recording studio and label; writing, self-producing and playing most, or all, of...

, and Curtis Mayfield

Curtis Mayfield

Curtis Lee Mayfield was an American soul, R&B, and funk singer, songwriter, and record producer.He is best known for his anthemic music with The Impressions during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's and for composing the soundtrack to the blaxploitation film Super Fly, Mayfield is highly...

. Music writer Mark Anthony Neal

Mark Anthony Neal

Mark Anthony Neal is Professor of Black Popular Culture in the Department of African and African-American Studies at Duke University, where he won the 2010 Robert B. Cox Award for Teaching...

 of PopMatters

PopMatters

PopMatters is an international webzine of cultural criticism that covers many aspects of popular culture. PopMatters publishes reviews, interviews, and detailed essays on most cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, films, books, video games, comics, sports, theater,...

 cited the album as "one of the most significant debuts in black pop during the past 25 years". Vibes Tamika Andeson gave it 4½ out of 5 stars and cited it as "one of the best R&B albums of the year".

Track listing

Charts

Charts (2001)	Peak position
US Billboard 200 Billboard 200 The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...	31
US Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums is a chart published by Billboard magazine that ranks R&B and hip hop albums based on sales compiled by Nielsen SoundScan. The name of the chart was changed from Top R&B Albums in 1999...	10

Personnel

Credits for 1st Born Second adapted from Allmusic.

• Bilal – vocals, drums, clavier, producer
• Greg Burns – assistant engineer, mixing
• Larry Chatman – project coordinator
• Mike City – multi instruments, producer
• Aaron Comess – bass, drums, producer, engineer, mixing engineer
• Tom Coster, Jr. – keyboards
• Jim Danis – assistant engineer, mixing
• Dahoud Darien – producer
• Vidal Davis – producer, engineer
• Russell Elevado – mixing
• Mike Elizondo – guitar, keyboards
• Todd Farrell – assistant engineer
• Drew FitzGerald – art direction
• Serban Ghenea – guitar, mixing
• Robert Glasper – keyboards, keyboard accordian
• James Hurt – string arrangements
• Jay Dee – producer
• Andres Levin – engineer, mixing

• Steve Mandel – mixing
• Artemio Villeda Martín – executive producer
• Alan Mason – mixing
• Sid McCoy – narrator
• Mel-Man – keyboards, producer
• Peter Mokran – mixing engineer
• Mike Moreno – guitar
• Mos Def
  Mos Def
  Dante Terrell Smith is an American actor and Emcee known by the stage names Mos Def and Yasiin Bey. He started his hip hop career in a group called Urban Thermo Dynamics, after which he appeared on albums by Da Bush Babees and De La Soul. With Talib Kweli, he formed the duo Black Star, which...
  
   – rap
• Damu Mtume – executive producer
• Neil Pogue – mixing engineer
• James Poyser – organ, producer, Fender Rhodes
• Raphael Saadiq – producer
• Jon Smeltz – engineer
• Soulquarians
  Soulquarians
  The Soulquarians is a neo soul and hip hop-informed musical collective with members from Philadelphia, New York, Detroit, Richmond, Brooklyn, Chicago, Dallas, and Oakland. The collective formed during the late 1990s, continuing into the early 2000s, and produced several well-received albums...
  
   – producer
• Mike Starr – guitar
• Kendal Stubbs – engineer
• John Tyree – assistant engineer, mixing

External links

• 1st Born Second at Discogs
  Discogs
  Discogs, short for discographies, is a website and database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. The Discogs servers, currently hosted under the domain name discogs.com, are owned by Zink Media, Inc., and are...
  
  
• 1st Born Second at Metacritic
  Metacritic
  Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...