Talib Kweli

General comments

  • He doesn't really have much range in his tone / volume / speed. When you listen to his rap, it's just the same tone-of-voice / volume / speed the whole way through.
  • He emphasizes certain syllables by raising the pitch of his voice for that one syllable, while the rest of his rap is in a fairly small range of pitches. This is exactly what Mos Def does.
    • Example: "Gun Music" 0:22 → The only blood in the street is when the GOVernment spilling it, he just raises the pitch of his voice for that one syllable, and all of the other syllables are around the same pitch.



2002 - Quality

General comments

  • He doesn't really have much range in his tone / volume / speed. When you listen to his rap, it's just the same tone-of-voice / volume / speed the whole way through.
  • The accompaniment doesn't really have a melody / chord changes.


1. Keynote Speaker - Dave Chappelle

  • This sets a light mood. Chappelle jokes about driving in a car with Kweli, passing a guy on the side of the road who looks disheveled, Kweli insisting on pulling over to help him, and it turns out the guy is a prison escapist.


2. Rush

  • The accompaniment and Kweli are really competing for airspace.
  • This sounded like pretty generic "I'm great" to me.


3. Get By

  • This was produced by Kanye West.
  • There isn't much of a melody, or at least it isn't easy to hear it. The loop is 8 bars. The first 4 bars is a piano playing some notes, but I'm not sure there's a chord change. The second 4 bars seems to be the piano switching between two chords.


4. Shock Body



5. Gun Music


  • At the end he has a 30-second skit with an actor whose voice I recognize but I can't remember what he looks like, what movies he was in, or what his name is.


6. Waitin' For The DJ



7. Joy



8. Talk To You (Lil' Darlin')



9. Guerrilla Monsoon Rap



10. Put It In The Air



11. The Proud



12. Where Do We Go



13. Stand To The Side



14. Good To You



15. Won't You Stay