Talib Kweli - Quality

One of hip-hop's hardest-working soldiers returns with what is officially at least his first solo album, although headz will recognise him as one half of both Black Star with Mos Def and Reflection Eternal with DJ Hi-tek. A tireless campaigner for human rights, heavy hip-hop and for people to be generally nicer to each other, this man's skill lies in the conviction and intricacy of his message and his unwavering compassion for social issues - Kweli spits science on every release he's ever been on, and this is no exception.

An album full of thought, melody and skill, Talib combines all three in a way that cannot be matched in hip-hop right now. For all those thinking that the tru-skool only exists now in isolated underground pockets, think again - Kweli is, and talks, big business, whilst always concentrating on that Quality. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Despite his many recordings and achievements, no album exemplifies Kweli's tremendous ability better than Quality. The disc is a compelling sign of his artistic and personal maturation, in which Kweli delves into an even greater variety of subject matters, with a skillful mix of braggadocio and vulnerability. Deceptively flippant at every turn, he knocks heads over again and again on "Shock Body," in which he states, "Cats take a Vicodin pill to numb the pain that they're feeling pertaining to stealing my rhymes/ And findin' their brains on the ceiling/ I'm blowing their minds wide open when my flow is divine / Hey, yo, my whole style's bangin' like I'm throwin' up signs." And in "Joy," a duet with Mos Def, Kweli looks to his two children, Amani Fela and Diani Eshe, as a source of divine lyrical inspiration: "I do it for the seeds, y'all/ In their formative years when they need, y'all/ We gotta believe in what we conceive, y'all/ It's deep, y'all."
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