Are You a Saturday Night Fever Fan? & other: July 2008

Artist: Talib Kweli

   Genre(s):
Rap: Hip-Hop

Discography:

Ear Drum

Year: 2007
Tracks: 20

Eardrum

Year: 2006
Tracks: 4

The Beautiful Struggle

Year: 2004
Tracks: 13

Quality

Year: 2002
Tracks: 15

If skills sold, Talib Kweli would hold been one of the most commercially successful rappers of his time. As it was, however, the earnest MC became one of the most critically successful rappers of his time, which dawned in the late '90s when he rapped alongside Mos Def and DJ Hi-Tek as part of the chemical group Black Star. This trio of up-and-comers and their wide acclaimed self-titled 1998 record album debut, Black Star, helped make Rawkus Records one of the prime minister resistance rap outposts of the recent '90s. Kweli and Hi-Tek then collaborated as a duo on Rumination Eternal (2000), which firm conventional them apart from Mos Def, world Health Organization had gone solo. For a moment on that point, Kweli and his Rawkus associates seemed like a full-fledged drift -- a return to the sort of rap associated with the supposed golden years. However, it wasn't to be. Rawkus somehow lost its impulse, and its roster lamentably dispersed, going Kweli on his possess to post the torch. He continued his output signal, beginning with a right solo debut, Calibre (2002), and though he didn't squeeze up lofty gross revenue book of Numbers, he remained a critical dearie. In fact, he was one of the most admired and well-thought-of rappers on the major-label circuit during the mid-2000s, charles Herbert Best evidenced by Jay-Z's celebrated Ignominious Album verse: "If skills sold, truth be told/I'd believably be, lyrically, Talib Kweli."

Innate in Brooklyn as the firstborn of deuce sons born to college professors, Kweli's first base name, Talib, is an Arabic name meaning "the seeker or scholarly person," piece his last refer is a Ghanaian name meaning "of truth or cognition." He began development his literary gift in simple schooling, when he'd write short stories, poems, and that sort of stuff. It wasn't until old age by and by in heights school that he sour to rap as an vent for his self-expression. There in high school day he met a young Dante Smith, better known today as Mos Def. This fatal meeting further john Drew Kweli toward hip-hop, and another fatal coming together further convinced him that he had a vivid future as an MC. During a 1994 trip to Cincinnati he met Tony Cottrell, aka DJ Hi-Tek, world Health Organization at the fourth dimension was part of a local whang group called Mood. Kweli impressed Hi-Tek during their fourth dimension together, and the DJ invited the MC to guest on various tracks for Mood's 1997 album Doom. Shortly afterwards, Kweli and Hi-Tek formed a partnership as Reflection Eternal and recorded "Fortified Live," which a then-fledging Rawkus judge released on its number 1 Soundbombing digest.

A year later in 1998, the deuce invited Mos Def into the mix, and the Ignominious Star album resulted. And with it came a firm soaker of decisive clap that sour these guys into media darlings overnight. They power not have sold millions of albums, but Kweli, Hi-Tek, and Mos Def most for certain impressed a swell many people, among them critics, fellow rap music artists, and a lot of folk world Health Organization enjoyed a good old fashioned hip-hop album with an stress on beatniks, rhymes, and life -- non dramatized shootout or interpolations of proved pop songs. That was the end of Black Star, however. In 1999 Mos Def released his debut solo album, Fatal on Both Sides, and turned aside from music and toward an acting life history, going away Kweli and Hi-Tek on their possess. The duo returned to their Reflection Eternal partnership and released an album of the same key out in 2000. It spawned a few minor hits: "Move Somethin'" and "The Blast."

When Kweli returned with his Quality album in 2002, things had changed a bit. For one, he was truly solo. Mos Def was long deceased, and Hi-Tek was off focalization on his possess solo life history as a for-hire producer. So Quality featured Kweli collaborating with a host of unlike artists, among them a brigham Young and hopeful in time smooth largely unknown producer named Kanye West. "Catch By" was the yield of Kweli's collaboration with West, and it became the rapper's biggest attain to date, aided quite a bit by a non-album remix featuring Jay-Z of all people. The remix got a destiny of wireless play, only still, Caliber didn't redact up Jay-Z numbers and Kweli remained a critical front-runner, a reputation cemented all the more in late 2003 when Jigga gave him the said high profile shoutout in "Moment of Clarity."

All of this jell the stage selfsame well for The Beautiful Struggle, which dropped in accrue 2004. The expectations for the album were gargantuan because of the Jay-Z rhyme, and too because a outstanding many rap music disciples matt-up Kweli was long overdue for a commercial breakthrough. The album was undoubtedly his most commercial elbow grease to date, featuring a few item radio-ready cabbage singers like Mary J. Blige and Anthony Hamilton, not to honorable mention a roster of hitmaking producers like the Neptunes, Just Blaze, and Kanye. It was also Kweli's most self-conscious to particular date, however, as it was well plain that the commercial-grade pressures had begun to impact his outlook. He responded by splitting from his distributor, Universal, and fabrication low for a piece, cathartic a stopgap mixtape, Right About Now (2005) via Koch.

In prevision of his future solo album, Kweli collaborated with producer Madlib on the digital-only Liberation, which was made uncommitted as a free download during the first calendar week of 2007 on the Stones Throw internet site. Finally, in August of that like year, Kweli issued the full-length album Tympanum on his have label, Blacksmith, via a partnership with Warner Brothers. Debuting at number two on the Billboard cc and selling around 60,000 copies in its first base hebdomad, Tympanic membrane was Kweli's best-selling album to particular date and features beats from non only if Madlib just too Hi-Tek, Kanye West, Pete Rock, and will.i.am, among others, and features guests like Norah Jones, UGK, Justin Timberlake, and Strong Arm Steady.

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