Talib Kweli

The Brooklyn MC has announced a new album coming out with Hi-Tek sometime this year which looks to replicate the magic they captured on Reflection Eternal. But Talib Kweli has always been one of those rare MCs that is able to powerfully intertwine his words to turn otherwise simple lines into mesmerizing hooks. This first song, "I Try," is from one of his lesser sought out albums, The Beautiful Struggle, but it features Mary J. Blige singing a killer chorus and a just as strong, Kweli as he repeats the album title, twice, in this song: "Life is a beautiful struggle," and man, he couldn't be more right.


This next one gets my vote as the best song of the entire decade with Kweli's shattering "Get By" off his classic, Quality. It's funny and somewhat ironic that I would choose these two songs because they each share elements dealing with life's struggles: everything from dealing with bad jobs, tough bills to pay, the economy, despair, being dealt a bad hand, tough breaks, love loss and so much more. And while "I Try" finds a Kweli dealing with effort on a level where it never seems enough, "Get By" finds an aggressive Kweli, rapping about the many things we do in our life, "just to get by."


These are only small snippets of his genius (coincidentally each track was produced by Mr. Kanye West) as his albums deserve much more respect. - Bryan