I enjoy all meaningful hip hop music more than I could ever explain to you, but never did I know an incredibly intelligent track could be so fun. I guess that's what you get with an always lyrically on-par Talib Kweli when he had an old Kanye beat tape before he was a household name.
With Quality, Talib punned his name into the title and provided every bit of it literally with every song in the album. After two undeniably classic duo albums, the Brooklynite ventured completely solo to create another. And I'm not ever gonna say he didn't.
The album comes to a explosive high point early on once "Get By" breaks into your auditory system. Nina Simone Sinnerman's her way through the intro as the looped key sample joyfully creeps its way in simultaneously with Kweli getting straight to it. "We sell crack to our own out the back of our home, we smell musk the musk at the dusk in the crack of the dawn ..."
Short, pointed verses refrain with the sing-alongable chorus and keep you knodding the entire time. You can feel how immense and hopeful the lyrics are, yet you can't help but nearly get lost in how easy the track plays. And just extending on its level of perfection is a more radio acknowledgeable remix creating an ultimate posse cut with the addition of Black Star partner Mos Def, fellow Brooklynite Jay-Z, an early rhyme from Kanye West, and Busta Rhymes rounding it out. Even if you're not crazy familiar with Kweli, you prolly already have stored in the back of your head Jay's big-up Black Album "Moment of Clarity" line, "If skills sold then truth be told, I'd prolly be, lyrically Talib Kweli. Truthfully I wanna rhyme like Common Sense. But I did 5 mill, I ain't been rhymin' like Common since." Calling out both my "Classic" series emcees? Yup.
This mornin', I woke up, feelin' brand new and, I jumped up ...
... and so concludes another masterpiece
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