TALIB KWELI The Beautiful Struggle 2x LP NEW VINYL Rawkus Hi-Tek Kanye West Nep

$

30

Store Categories HIP HOP FUNK / SOUL DUB/REGGAE/DANCEHALL EXPERIMENTAL/IDM DOWNTEMPO DUBSTEP/GRIME SERATO CONTROL VINYL HOUSE TECHNO INDYTRONIC SYNTHWAVE/80'S/INDUSTRIAL UK BASS/FUTURE GARAGE/UKF WONKY GLITCH HOP AMBIENT/DRONE BATTLE BREAKS/ACAPELLAS DISCO ELECTRO/BREAKS GHETTO TECH/JUKE/FOOTWORK HIPSTER JUMP OFF PROGRESSIVE/TRANCE DRUM N' BASS BREAKCORE ROCK POP PUNK METAL JAZZ TALIB KWELI The Beautiful Struggle / 2x LP NEW VINYL / Rawkus 2004

The Beautiful Struggle revels in hip-hop's recent emergence as an iconic powerhouse while reintroducing Brooklyn native and "three time Nobel prize winner" Talib Kweli as one of the genre's most vocal supporters and sharpest antagonists. This duality has always been present in Kweli's catalog: His music embraces the binding value of truth as much as it documents his divergence from the methods traditionally used to uphold it. But that's one reason why The Beautiful Struggle makes such a curious addition to his oeuvre: It again challenges his unquestioned integrity in its choice of producers while re-evaluating his political poignancy for the new audiences they open him up to.

For purists, anything commercial is death, and though 2002's Quality hinted that a move toward a more mainstream team of producers might not be out of the question on a future release, the sight of producers like The Neptunes, Just Blaze, and Kanye West (who appeared once on Quality before he was an unstoppable force on Top 40 radio) here could be a point of contention for Kweli's more uptight contingency. However, the fact that The Beautiful Struggle marks the return of original collaborator Hi-Tek is good news for any Kweli fan-- even if he only appears on three of the album's tracks.

Meanwhile, up against harder hitting beats, Kweli plays his cards expertly: His adaptive, veteran flow serves as an unusually smart counterpoint to the glossy proclivities of his beatmakers, safeguarding him against a disaster like The Roots' Scott Storch collaboration "Don't Say Nuthin'". On "Never Been in Love", Talib's romanticism draws out a less fiery side of the typically aggressive Just Blaze. Here, behind cracking snares and wafting female intonations, Kweli lowers his political guard to wax lovely: "Jewel of the Nile so I'm romancing the stone/ The rhythm is in the words and I watched her dance to my poems."

eBay Inventory Software and eBay Automated Listing Powered By: