Talib Kweli is Seeking Success (and Truth)

Talib Kweli is not your typical rapper. Unlike fellows with "Lil" before their name, or with nicknames that evoke images of blood, shooting, and gang warfare, Talib's stage name is his real name, which roughly translated, means true seeker. In his "alternative" songs and attitudes, Talib Kweli is more like the eclectic hip hop stars who came before him in the 1990s like De La Soul and Tribe Called Quest.

In fact, if you listen to Talib Kweli, he might even tell you that these were the groups, along with Gall and the Native Tongues Posse (a larger group that Tribe hung with), that he listened to as a kid growing up in Brooklyn. So he is street smart and alternative?

Sort of. He didn't exactly always grow up on the streets of the Outer Boroughs. Talib Kweli actually went to a pretty fancy boarding school in Connecticut, and his two parents were university professors. Talib Kweli even went to university himself, to study acting. So his background can hardly be considered the norm in the rap industry, where most people grow up in ghettos with a family member or two getting shot. Are we kidding here? No.

A Black Star

Still, rap is the game that Talib Kweli got himself into. It was the late 1990s, and Talib Kweli was back in New York. There, he got together with Mos Def. The two of them formed a group called Black Star, and in 1998, the first Black Star and Talib Kweli record was released, called "Mos Def and Talib Kweli are Black Star."

The record came out when the movement called Afrocentric hip hop was still in vogue, so Mos Def and Talib Kweli got props for their production. Still, the two broke up soon after. Talib Kweli collaborated with another performer called DJ Hi-Tek. They had a group together called the Reflection Eternal, putting out underground mixes and music. Their 2000 record was called Train of Thought.

But it wasn't until the true seeker went off on his own that he started to see serious commercial success. When was this again? In 2002, the first solo Talib Kweli album came out. Called "Quality," it was produced by the likes of DJ Quik and Kanye West. Kanye, for instance, produced the one Talib Kweli song that did the best off the record, called "Get By."

Still Seeking

After this commercial success, Talib Kweli became sort of a cultural icon. He starred on Chappelle's Show, and even had the famous comic do some work on his albums. Some guest Talib Kweli lyrics appeared on Kanye West's album, and he even did commercials for college basketball.

But he hit a minor roadblock in his career when he released the second solo Talib Kweli album, called "The Beautiful Struggle." It didn't sell, and critics didn't like it so much. But he quickly bounced back in 2006 with the release of his online album, "Liberation."

Now, Talib Kweli has announced he will release as many as three new Talib Kweli albums in 2008, including one called "Prisoner of Conscious."

From Talib Kweli to Hip Hop Music