Talib Kweli Breaks Down His 25 Most Essential Songs

Talib Kweli is an MC's MC. Last month, Complex included him on our list of 25 Hip-Hop Artists People Think Are One-Hit Wonders (But Totally Aren't).

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Talib Kweli is an MC's MC. On "Moment of Clarity" Jay-Z name-checked him as the ultimate example of lyrical quality: "If skills sold/Truth be told/I'd probably be/Lyrically/Talib Kweli." But as dope as he is, many casual rap fans are unaware of his vast body of work.

Last month, Complex included him on our list of 25 Hip-Hop Artists People Think Are One-Hit Wonders (But Totally Aren't) because Kweli is probably best known for his 2003 Kanye West–produced hit single "Get By." Kweli may not have had many more Billboard hits, but true hip-hop heads know he's got an illustrious catalog—both as a solo act and as a member of Reflection Eternal with Hi-Tek, and Black Star with Mos Def (now known as Yasiin Bey).

The duo still does shows together all the time—in fact they're playing the Bonnaroo Festival today. So it seemed a good time to get on the horn with the Brooklyn MC to find out the stories behind the making of his classic cuts.

He told us how there's a huge mistake in his verse for Kanye West's "Get 'Em High," how Lyor Cohen blocked the release of the "Get By (Remix)," and why he and Hi-Tek didn't speak for two years after releasing the first Reflection Eternal album. Plus he claimed that DJs refused to play his song "Waiting For The DJ" because Bilal sounded "too gay," he reflected on his classic line "Always got something to say like a Okayplayer Hater," and how his label wanted him to change his name after 9/11.   

As told to Insanul Ahmed (@Incilin)

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Reflection Eternal f/ Mr. Man & Mos Def "Fortified Live" (1997)

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Album: Sound Bombing
Producer: Hi-Tek
Label: Rawkus Records

Talib Kweli: “When I started my career, I was known for freestyling in Washington Square Park. There was like a full community of artists that used to freestyle, battle, and vibe off each other in the park. It was Supernatural. There was Agallah, who used to be 8-Off the Assassin.

“Then you also had Mr. Man from Da Bush Babees, who I also went to Brooklyn Tech High School with. Bush Babees were the only one who had a record deal, but even then, Mr. Man would still be in the park—he was just one of us. These were like the most popular freestylers back then.

“And also, you had Yasiin Bey—who used to go by Mos Def. Yasiin had a deal with his group Urban Thermo Dynamics but my family was getting friendly with his family. My demo tape got in his hands and he liked it. He would always compliment me on my demo tape. Yasiin was starting to be known in local hip-hop circles.


 

Yasiin was like, ‘Yo those Rawkus dudes gave me some money. I went up there, played them some music, they gave me some money, and I’m sure they would do the same for you.’ I said, ‘You know what? I didn’t even think about that.’


 

“He was my favorite MC at that time, even though he was brand new. I was working at a Nkiru Books and he used to come to the bookstore to the point where I asked him to get on the record with me. And I already knew Mr. Man because I went to high school with him and I was already planning to have him on the song.

“By this time, I had started to work with Hi-Tek. I went to college at NYU and my roommate was from Cincinnati. I went to visit him in Cincinnati and that’s how I met Hi-Tek.

"The beat is a Tom Drunk sample, an old ska reggae sample. One of my best friends was an avid reggae head and he’s the one who came with the idea. He gave the record to Hi-Tek and Hi-Tek flipped it.

“We recorded the record and then me and Hi-Tek had a project called Groundation which was a glorified demo tape that we were kicking around to record companies, trying to get a deal.

“I knew the Rawkus dudes because John Forte was exclusive to Rawkus. Five years before I was even on Rawkus, John Forte tried to sign me to Rawkus when he was their A&R before he went into his [prison] situation.

“So I knew Brian Brater and Jarret Myer from Rawkus, but I didn’t take them seriously. At this point they had only put out Sir Menelik and Company Flow, But they were about to put out Yasiin’s record. He had done a deal with Rawkus to put out the ‘Universal Magnetic’ single.

“Yasiin was like, ‘Yo those Rawkus dudes gave me some money. I went up there, played them some music, they gave me some money, and I’m sure they would do the same for you.’ I said, ‘You know what? I didn’t even think about that.’


 

Rawkus was like, ‘Listen, we just did a deal with Yasiin. It’ll be a great tie-in, that’s what we think you should do. And we’ll give you money for it.’ We got like $5,000 or $7,000 for the single. Something like that. I had never seen that amount of money in my life.


 

“So we scheduled a meeting. I played them some songs. One of them was an early version ‘Eternalist’ and one of them was an early version of ‘Knowledge of Self.’ They were just kind of cool on all of those songs. They were like, ‘Ehh.’

“I wasn’t gonna play them ‘Fortified Live’ because to me, I didn’t want my first single to have Yasiin and Mr. Man on it. I wanted to stand out on my own and establish myself first and then bring that record to them. But Brian Brater heard the beat and was like, ‘What’s that?’ And I played him the song and he was like, ‘That’s the record we want to put out.’

“I remember fighting with him like, ‘No, that’s the second single. The first single gotta be this,’ and I played him whatever song we were trying to get them to put out. But they convinced me.

"They were like, ‘Listen, we just did a deal with Yasiin. It’ll be a great tie-in, that’s what we think you should do. And we’ll give you money for it.’ We got like $5,000 or $7,000 for the single. Something like that. I had never seen that amount of money in my life.

“But I was still working at the bookstore. That’s why if you look at that record cover, I have on a wrinkled shirt. Me, Yasiin, and Mr. Man are basically standing in front of the bookstore.

"What happened was, we said we need some art for the cover. I was at work so I said, ‘You guys need to come down here and take the picture.’ I was moving boxes all day, that’s why my shirt was wrinkled. We just went outside and we took a picture.”

Reflection Eternal "2000 Seasons" (1997)

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Album: Fortified Live B-Side
Producer: Hi-Tek
Label: Rawkus Records

Talib Kweli: “We had a bunch of songs that we played for Rawkus that they didn’t like. Once we got the budget we decided we would come with something fresh. The songs we had played them were a year or two old. So we took the budget and we went in the studio to record a B-Side for 'Fortified Live.'

“With 'Fortified Live' I was very focused on, Well this record’s gonna come out, and I’m gonna get lost, and everyone knows Yasiin and Mr. Man, they don’t know me—yet it’s my first single.This was something that was weighing heavy on me. I had a complex about people not taking me seriously as an artist because I came out with these two other established artists first.


 

It would be hard for me to learn that record and perform it today because it’s so lyrical and so dense. I performed it back then in those early days, but that record is just like 48 bars or 60 bars. No hook, just me rapping.


 

“My idea for ‘2000 Seasons’ was to do a record that was super wordy and super lyrical so no one could ever be confused about my lyrical prowess and how good I was.

"It would be hard for me to learn that record and perform it today because it’s so lyrical and so dense. I performed it back then in those early days, but that record is just like 48 bars or 60 bars. No hook, just me rapping.

“The conventional wisdom in the music business today is completely opposite. Like, even with big huge stars; you rarely hear a Drake, Rick Ross, Lil Wayne record on the radio that doesn’t have Drake or Rick Ross or Wayne as a guest. So now the wisdom is, ‘Nah, you need to have somebody on the record. That needs to be your first record.’

“But Rawkus, Brian and Jarret, they knew better than me. They made the right decision. They were thinking business. They were thinking, ‘Yasiin has an established brand, people are very excited about Yasiin right now. You got this guy from the Bush Babees, Bush Babees are still a semi-popular group in hip-hop circles. You want synergy. You want people to understand that this is a movement. We’re pushing the Rawkus movement.’ That wasn’t my focus. My focus was, ‘Nah, they need to know how nice I am.’”

Black Star "Astronomy" (1998)

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Album: Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star
Producer: Da Beatminerz
Label: Rawkus / Priority Records / EMI / MCA

Talib Kweli: “Yasiin Bey and I were very similar in style at that time. We were doing a lot of shows, open-mics, lyricist lounge events, and poetry readings together and we were becoming fast friends.

"Since Yasiin was on 'Fortified Live,' even if I wasn’t on a show with him or he wasn’t on a show with me, we would invite each other to each other’s shows. It got to the point where you got used to seeing us perform together. It became known that, if Yasiin was gonna perform, I’d probably do a cameo, and vice versa.

“Yasiin and I talked loosely about a group concept, but it was Jarret from Rawkus who was like listen, ‘We’ve got the Yasiin Bey album coming out, we’ve got the Reflection Eternal album coming out, but we’re having a hard time getting people to understand what you’re trying to do with you and Hi-Tek. How about you and Yasiin do an album together and I’ll pay for it?’


 

A lot of people think the Black Star thing was because of Marcus Garvey, but Yasiin was on some cosmic tip. He was talking about binaries and black stars in the cosmos and that’s where he was at. That’s why the first song is ‘Astronomy.’


 

“Yasiin and I had already discussed it a little bit, but we hadn’t taken the idea seriously. When Jarret offered us a deal to do it—he really offered me the deal. I was like, administering it. He gave me $30,000, which was like, ‘Okay, it went from $5,000 to $30,000.’ Even back then Yasiin was like, ‘That’s not enough, but whatever—let’s do it.’

“We ended up doing that entire album for like $70,000. We kept going back and asking for more money to mix, travel, and fly and everything. Once that offer was on the table, Yasiin came up with the idea.

"A lot of people think the Black Star thing was because of Marcus Garvey, but Yasiin was on some cosmic shit. He was talking about binaries and black stars in the cosmos and that’s where he was at. That’s why the first song is ‘Astronomy.’

“Rest in peace to Weldon Irvine, one of the greatest jazz musicians ever. He wrote and performed with Nina Simone and on his own. He had many jazz classics. Da Beatminerz produced that, Mr. Walt and Evil Dee.

"They sent us that beat, and then we recorded it in Funky Slice Studios in Brooklyn. Then we wanted keyboards on it. We asked Weldon Irvine to play the keys on it and he’s just phenomenal on it.”

Black Star "Definition" (1998)

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Album: Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star
Producer: Hi-Tek
Label: Rawkus / Priority Records / EMI / MCA

Talib Kweli: “That might have been the very first record that we recorded for Black Star.

“Once we decided that we were gonna do the album, we started collecting beats. I was working with Hi-Tek, most of the beats came from Hi-Tek. And then J. Rawls from Columbus Ohio. Yasiin was working with Shawn J. Period, we were hanging out with Geology and 88 Keys, those were like people we were hanging out with. That’s basically the core of who produced that album.

“Yasiin was like, ‘Yo, you know what would be ill? If we took that BDP beat, ‘The P Is Still Free,’ and I did the ‘Stop the Violence’ hook over it.’ Hi-Tek said ‘That’s a great idea’ and went working on the beat immediately. Yasiin is good like that. With ‘Brown Skin Lady,’ when J. Rawls played that beat, Mos came up with that hook immediately. He’s very good at coming up with ideas for songs.


 

We were respected in the underground scene because our content was straight-up New York: lyrics, MCs. But ‘Definition’ worked for Funkmaster Flex and it worked on New York radio because it fit right in with the trend of what was going on in hip-hop radio.


 

“So we flipped ‘The P Is Still Free,’ but then Hi-Tek doesn’t like to copy. He was like, ‘This is just me flipping BDP, I need to flip it again.’ That’s where we get ‘REdefinition’ from. Hi-Tek flipped it again, and he used the same drums and same pattern, but he did a Hi-Tek version of it.

“So even though we were excited about what he did with ‘P Is Still Free,’ when we heard the second half, we were like, ‘Oh this is fucking crazy, we gotta rap on this.’ The original song, I don’t know how it’s listed on the album, but the song is like six minutes long because we rap to ‘The P Is Still Free’ beat and then it transfers to the other beat. We had to break it in half to make it a single.

“Puff Daddy then took it and had Total singing over ‘The P Is Still Free’ beat later that year too. So it wasn’t as different. That’s what’s interesting about it. What was going on at the time, particularly with Bad Boy running things, is Puff and his Hitmen team were very good at taking old school, classic hip-hop beats and putting them with new school, more R&B sounding production. Puff was the master of that.

“We were respected in the underground scene because our content was straight-up New York: lyrics, MCs. But ‘Definition’ worked for Funkmaster Flex and it worked on New York radio because it fit right in with the trend of what was going on in hip-hop radio.”

Black Star f/ Common "Respiration" (1998)

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Album: Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star
Producer: Hi-Tek
Label: Rawkus / Priority Records / EMI / MCA

Talib Kweli: “Yasiin had been on tour with De La Soul and he had done songs with them. Even though he wasn’t touring, he was very friendly with Q-Tip—they had a Muslim connection. And Yasiin knew Common through his De La connection. I did not know De La, nor did I know A Tribe Called Quest, nor did I know Common.

“Common was my favorite MC though. If Yasiin was becoming my favorite MC at the time, Common had been my favorite. You couldn’t tell me nothing wrong about Common. I thought Common was the greatest thing since sliced bread. When we talked about who we want on the album, I was the one who was like, ‘We need Common.’

“Yasiin was already kind of living the artist life, where I was sort of still on the outside looking in. I was still the administrator of the album, so Yasiin was still in the studio doing his parts but it’s really on me to make everything happen.

"Common had a show at Wetlands, which was an old club in New York. I went to the sound check to try and catch him but he was doing an interview with Joe Clair for Rap City at the time so I didn’t get a chance to talk to him. But it’s funny, if anyone has footage of that Rap City, you see me in the background as Common and Joe Clair are coming out of the tour bus, you see me in front of Wetlands waiting to meet Common.


 

I went to the sound check to try and catch Common but he was doing an interview with Joe Clair for Rap City at the time so I didn’t get a chance to talk to him. But it’s funny, if anyone has footage of that Rap City, you see me in the background as Common and Joe Clair are coming out of the tour bus, you see me in front of Wetlands waiting to meet Common.


 

“So it’s interesting, this is the day that I met my manager to this day, Corey Smyth. I was standing out there waiting for Common to come off the bus and Corey Smyth came off the bus.

"Corey was managing De La and Common was close with them, that’s why he was on the bus. I recognized the face, but I didn’t know where I knew him from. Then he was like, ‘Kweli, what’s up?’ I was like, ‘OK, he knows me,’ and I just went along with it.

“He’s like, ‘What are you doing out here?’ I was like, ‘I’m waiting for Common to come off the bus.’ He was like, ‘Why don’t you just come on the bus?’ I’m like, ‘I don’t know him like that.’ So he was like, ‘OK, I’ll introduce you.’ And that’s how I met Corey and Common.

“Corey brought me on the bus and I played the track for Common that I wanted him to be on. It was a Hi-Tek track that ended up being a song called ‘Sharp Shooters,’ with me and dead prez. That was the track that I was originally like, ‘This is the track that me and Yasiin want you on.’ Common said he’d do it.

“Months went by and I couldn’t get in touch with him. Then there was a Gavin Music Convention in San Francisco and Common was there, he had a show at some small club. I made my way to that show and fought my way into the VIP section. When Common got off stage he saw me and was like, ‘Yo, you’re that guy who’s in the group with Mos Def.’ I was like, ‘Yes, I came to talk to you about the song.’

“He brought me on the tour bus a second time. I played him the beat and he was like, ‘I’ll try to do it when I can.’ Then another few months went by and Yasiin had a show in Chicago that he invited me to and Common was the special guest at the show. I talked to them that night about getting in the studio and Common agreed to go in the studio the next day.

“We all got in the studio the next day and neither Common nor Yasiin was feeling the beat that I chose. But the beat for ‘Respiration’ played and they both went, ‘That’s the one.’ I was like, ‘I don’t know, this other beat’s killing that beat.’ We debated and they won out. I’ll say years later that they were correct.

“The Style Wars sample on the beat was my idea. I was into interludes, skits, and all that stuff. The ‘Live from somewhere’ in ‘Definition’ and the little poem ‘Black is,’ that’s all stuff that I was watching and listening to that I brought with me to the studio like, ‘Let’s put this here.’”

Black Star "Thieves In The Night" (1998)

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Album: Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star
Producer: 88-Keys
Label: Rawkus / Priority Records / EMI / MCA

Talib Kweli: “88 Keys was very young and starting to gain notoriety. He was living in his parents’ house. He must have been 18 years old, but he was gaining notoriety working with Q-Tip.

"He was the type of dude who would show up to every open mic, to every Lyricist Lounge, and when someone would say, ‘Does anyone have any beats that we can rap to?’ he would pull out his beat tape.

“He’s still that fucking guy. It’s funny, I watched 88 Keys go from being cool with me and Yasiin to being cool with Q-Tip to being cool with Kanye to being cool with Dilla. Whoever’s making the hottest beats, 88 Keys is next to them. That’s his shit.


 

88 Keys was the type of dude who would show up to every open mic, to every Lyricist Lounge, and when someone would say, ‘Does anyone have any beats that we can rap to?’ he would pull out his beat tape...I watched 88 Keys go from being cool with me and Yasiin to being cool with Q-Tip to being cool with Kanye to being cool with Dilla. Whoever’s making the hottest beats, 88 Keys is next to them.


 

“But he was working in his parents’ basement in Long Island. We took the Long Island Rail Road out to 88 Keys’ crib and I picked that beat. Yasiin actually wasn’t feeling that beat. He was trying to pick some other beats and I recorded a verse to that beat at 88 Keys’ crib.

“Yasiin heard my verse, and he was like, ‘I really like that verse.’ I don’t know if he had the verse written, or he wrote it then, but he laid the verse that we ended up keeping. His verse on that song is almost twice as long as mine. It was interesting because he didn’t like it at first, but then he got super inspired.

“If you listen to Yasiin’s early singles—he grew up in Islam, but he hadn’t quite embraced it fully as a man yet. When you hear ‘If You Can Huh! You Can Hear,’ or a lot of those records on Black on Both Sides, and ‘Thieves of the Night,’ Yasiin was coming fully into his realm like, ‘Okay, I’m a Muslim, and that’s what I’m gonna represent.’ Not like telling you to follow Muhammad, but trying to be spiritually in-tune and trying to live life like Prophet Muhammad.

“I’m guessing that, him being a musician, he was struggling with—just like he is now with the name change—how do you do something that’s so worldly and it leads to so much decadence? How do you reconcile your spiritual release with the type of music that we do?

"I think that’s where a lot of his subject matter was coming from. Now he’s even more like that than he was then. I’ve watched him go through spiritual growth.

Reflection Eternal "Manifesto" (1998)

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Album: Lyricist Lounge, Volume One
Producer: Hi-Tek
Label: Rawkus Records

Talib Kweli: “That was something that Hi-Tek and I created for the specific purpose of being on the Lyricist Lounge. Everyone agreed that we needed to be on that album and we didn’t have a song that we had recorded that would fit. Rawkus paid for us to get in the studio and create a song and that’s the one we came up with.

“That record ended up defining me as an MC a lot. That record was the first people really heard me just by myself and really got into it. That record, ‘The 10 Point Program,’ is something that really resonated with people.

“I look at that as truthfully my first real solo single. That was the first time people were like, ‘Yo, who is this kid?’ Even on Black Star it was still like ‘he’s Yasiin Bey’s homeboy.’ But ‘Manifesto’ established me as my own artist.


 

The perception [of being Mos Def’s homeboy] is something that still goes on to this day. My track record speaks infinite volumes against that perception but there’s still people who were fans back then who have never let that go. I think it’s because Yasiin is such a charismatic artist—such a pure spirit.


 

“The perception [of being Mos Def’s homeboy] is something that still goes on to this day. My track record speaks infinite volumes against that perception but there’s still people who were fans back then who have never let that go. I think it’s because Yasiin is such a charismatic artist—such a pure spirit.

“I’ve become a better musician, but in my early days, in order to get into what I was doing, you had to really be existing and participating in hip-hop. What Yasiin was doing back then, people thought it was dope whether they got hip-hop or not.

"His style was more universal to people who may not have liked what was going on in underground hip-hop. Yasiin has brought a lot of people to underground hip-hop—and Black Star, by extension, brought a lot of people to that sound.

“But my sound was still much rooted in the culture of hip-hop. My focus was on proving myself lyrically so only people who are into lyrics really understood what I was trying to do, whereas Yasiin was singing. I was still dressing as, like, the average hip-hop dude; Yasiin wasn’t. There was a lot of things that he was doing that transcended what we were doing in underground hip-hop.”

Mos Def f/ Talib Kweli "Know That" (1999)

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Album: Black on Both Sides
Producer: Ayotollah
Label: Rawkus / Priority Records

Talib Kweli: “It was very important to me, and also very important to Rawkus, that people understood who I was by name. Rawkus knew they were about to put out a Reflection Eternal record.

"If you look for Black Star in the record, technically the record is called Mos Def and Talib Kweli Are Black Star, that’s technically the name of the group on paper. If you look at it, it follows suit with the next record because the next record is Talib Kweli and Hi-Tek Are Reflection Eternal. That was important for us.


 

We knew that Black Star might be a one-off for us. When we did Black Star, it wasn’t like, ‘Oh, we’re a group now,’ and that’s what a lot of people didn’t understand because that was the first time they had heard of me or Yasiin. When we did Black Star, Reflection Eternal was already five years old.


 

“We did it like that because it was very important—and I think it was one of the smartest things that we both did—it was very important that people understood these were two separate individuals and I had something else coming. I think if it had just been Black Star, my career wouldn’t have been the same.

“We knew that Black Star might be a one-off for us. When we did Black Star, it wasn’t like, ‘Oh, we’re a group now,’ and that’s what a lot of people didn’t understand because that was the first time they had heard of me or Yasiin.

“When we did Black Star, Reflection Eternal was already five years old and I had already been knee deep into working on that album. I had my own friends and my own ideas about music.

"Black Star was something we did to come together. We just went and we were like, ‘This is my man and we doing a little group project together.’ So then he went and did his thing and I went and did my thing after that.

Reflection Eternal "The Blast" (2000)

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Album: Train of Thought
Producer: Hi-Tek
Label: Rawkus Records / Universal Music Group

Talib Kweli: “The Reflection Eternal album was completely recorded and done and we handed it to Rawkus and we were ready to go. Then Rawkus was like, ‘There’s no single that we feel comfortable with on this album,’ and I’m like, ‘What are you talking about? ‘Move Somethin,’ that’s the single.’ They were like, ‘It’s cool, but we feel like there should be another record. So you gotta go in the studio and make another record with a single in mind.’

“This pissed me off because I felt like I put my heart and soul into the album. I’m like, ‘Who the fuck are these fucking rich white dudes telling me that I don’t have a single? What the fuck do they know?’ But we went in the studio anyway.

“The beat for ‘The Blast’ was very old. My manager at the time, Corey Smyth, was stressing me like, ‘You guys need to make a record that says how to pronounce Kweli’s name, because no one knows how to do it.’ Hi-Tek was like, ‘Well this record kind of sounds like they’re saying ‘Kweli.’’ And Corey was like you should rap on that beat and make a record and say Kweli over and over again.


 

When Rawkus asked me to make single] it pissed me off because I felt like I put my heart and soul into the album. I’m like, ‘Who are these rich white dudes telling me that I don’t have a single? What do they know?’ But we went in the studio anyway.


 

“My whole thing was, I was really opposed to the idea of making a single for the label, so the original version of ‘The Blast,’ and the version that’s on the album, it just has my one verse and Hi-Tek’s verse on it and then it was done.

“Then the label was like, ‘We need to do a third verse for a video version. We can’t sell a record that’s only two minutes long and only has two verses.’ So even though that’s not the version that’s on the album, we ended up doing a third verse version of it.

“Rawkus, they were right about that. As soon as that record came out it took off for us, especially on the West Coast. Both Snoop Dogg and DJ Quik had radio shows on The Beat, 92.3 at the time, and those two guys were very very instrumental in spreading that record. They both played that record a lot on the radio show. Hi-Tek worked a lot with Snoop Dogg over the years, and that was the start of it.

“Hi-Tek has made way more money with Snoop and 50 Cent than he has with me and Yasiin. Me and Yasiin put him on the map, but when you go to his studio in Cincinnati, it’s G-Unit plaques that line the wall.

“I use Hi-Tek as an example when people try to tell me the difference between what I do and what 50 Cent or Dr. Dre or Snoop Dogg does. I’m like, ‘It’s all hip-hop.’ They like Hi-Tek beats just like I like Hi-Tek beats. It ain’t that different.”

Reflection Eternal "Move Somethin" (2000)

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Album: Train of Thought
Producer: Hi-Tek
Label: Rawkus Records / Universal Music Group

Talib Kweli: “Whichever record you made that most closely fits with the trends that are going on, then that should be your single. I felt like that was the record, there was ‘Loud’ and ‘The Blast’ and it was ‘Put your hands in the air,’ and ‘Gettem up, Gettem up.’ Like everyone’s records at the time had something about put your hands in the air.

“Like on ‘Fortified Live’ I say, ‘Planes get shot down in Cuban air space over the water,’ because everybody was rapping about their drug dealers are from Cuba at the time. So I was like, I’m gonna do this too but I’m gonna talk about Assata and the planes getting shot down. I’ve always been cognizant of the trends, but I try to flip it in my own way.


 

I compare that album to being at a coal mine and banging on a coal until you form a diamond. Me and Hi-Tek really butted heads during the album process. We butted heads so hard we didn’t speak to each other for two years after we made that album because we just got sick of each other.


 

“I compare that album to being at a coal mine and banging on a coal until you form a diamond. Me and Hi-Tek really butted heads during the album process. We butted heads so hard we didn’t speak to each other for two years after we made that album because we just got sick of each other.

“Hi-Tek had his vision and I had mine. We both appreciated things in each other, and we understood why we were in this group together, but the way I grew up was sharply different from how Hi-Tek grew up. The reasons why I loved that sound was very different from why Hi-Tek loved that sound. The reason why I loved that sound was more intellectual, Hi-Tek’s was more emotional.

“I’m a very debatable type of guy. I debate a lot and I’m very persuasive in how I stand on what I feel is to be right. If I have my facts together, I am not going to stop arguing with you. Whereas Hi-Tek is gonna fall back and be like, ‘You know, if you don’t feel me I’m not even gonna engage.’ Us being like that is why that album sounds the way it does. We were really trying to perfect each other on that album.”

The Roots f/ Talib Kweli "Rolling with the Heat" (2002)

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Album: Phrenology
Producer: The Grand Wizzards
Label: MCA / Geffen Records

Talib Kweli: “?uestlove from The Roots was a huge Black Star fan, Black Thought not so much. Quest was like, ‘Yo we need to have Black Star on the album,’ so he asked me and Yasiin to rap on the beat for 'Double Trouble.' The Roots are my favorite group behind De La, so I’m like, ‘I’m on The Roots album!’

“When album actually came out, I wasn’t on the song. Meanwhile Ahmir [?uestlove] thanked me in the credits so I was happy about that, but I was like, ‘What happened?’ Years later, after I toured with The Roots, I got closer with Tariq [Black Thought], who shares his birthday with me.


 

I know Black Thought wasn’t really feeling me like that was because he told me. He was like, ‘Yo, I gotta admit to you, when I heard that verse that you kicked on that beat, I didn’t feel you really brought it like that. So I was like, Yo, I don’t think he needs to be on the song.


 

“I know Black Thought wasn’t really feeling me like that was because he told me. He was like, ‘Yo, I gotta admit to you, when I heard that verse that you kicked on that beat, I didn’t feel you really brought it like that. So I was like, Yo, I don’t think he needs to be on the song.’

“He said, ‘But since I’ve been listening to you, I feel like you’ve gotten better and more consistent.’ And he said something very important to me, he was like, ‘You’re the last one who still cares about emceeing, you’re the last one who seems to still care about the lyrics and I really appreciate you for that.’

“I remember him saying, ‘I don’t rap for anybody but other rappers. I don’t care what nobody else thinks about what I say. Just other rappers.’ And when you listen to his lyrics and his style and the way he does it, you can tell.

“I was asked to be on a Roots album again for ‘Rolling with the Heat.’ Ever since then me and Tariq been real real good friends and he kept it all the way real with me.”

Talib Kweli f/ Black Thought, Kanye West & Pharoahe Monch "Guerrilla Monsoon Rap" (2002)

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Album: Quality
Producer: Kanye West
Label: Rawkus / Universal Music Group

Talib Kweli: “I was working on my record and I was working in Cutting Room studios. Kanye walked into my session and was like, ‘Yo, is Mos Def here?’ Yasiin was supposed to show up for that session, but it was one of those days where it was late and I knew Yasiin wasn’t gonna make it.

“I was like, ‘He’s not here, but what’s up?’ This is the first time I ever met Kanye. He was like, ‘Well he told me to meet him here because I have some beats for him. My name is Kanye West, I’m a producer and I worked on Beanie Sigel’s album.’


 

This is the first time I met Kanye West. He played me ‘Good To You’ and ‘Guerilla Monsoon Rap’ and a couple of other beats in that session. I picked those two immediately, like, ‘Yo, this kid is incredible! Who is this guy?’


 

“I said, ‘What songs did you do on Beanie Sigel’s album?’ He told me ‘The Truth’ and a couple of other songs, and I was like, ‘Man, those songs are the shit, can you play me some beats?’ He played me ‘Good To You’ and ‘Guerilla Monsoon Rap’ and a couple of other beats in that session. I picked those two immediately, like, ‘Yo, this kid is incredible! Who is this guy?’

“I knew I wanted a posse cut and I wanted Black Thought, Pharaohe, and Common. That was the idea. Kanye wrote and laid that hook but it was for one of us to sing. Common, for whatever reason, just did not get around to making those studio sessions.

“But Kanye had already laid the hook and Pharaohe had already said something about four MCs in his verse. So that’s when it was like, ‘Okay, if Kanye stays on the hook, there’s still four MCs on it.’ Which is why we ended up keeping Kanye’s hook there. But Kanye’s hook on that record is just fantastic.”

Talib Kweli "Get By" (2002)

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Album: Quality
Producer: Kanye West
Label: Rawkus / Universal Music Group

Talib Kweli: “Over the months Kanye would just show up at the studio and play beats. One time he played the ‘Get By’ beat and I listened to it for about a week. I called him like, ‘I need this beat,’ and he was like, ‘That beat is on hold, both Pharoahe Monch and Mariah Carey want that beat. If Mariah or Pharaohe wants it, I gotta tell them they can have it.’ I was like, ‘Well let me know.’

“A couple of weeks went by and I kept listening to it over and over again. I think it was destiny because my mind could not get off that beat. I called Kanye and harassed him for days like, ‘Look, has Mariah called you back? I need that beat. What’s up? Can I get the beat?’ I really went hard to get that beat. Finally, after a month or two, he was like, ‘Yeah, let's do the song.’


 

Kanye was trying to get a deal on Rawkus at that time. Kanye used to be up in the Rawkus office every day but they really didn’t understand him as an artist. I am proud to say, from the first time I heard him rap, I thought he was one of the best rappers I had ever heard. I was like, ‘Why is no one feeling him?’ That’s why I brought him on tour with me.


 

“The day he said that, I wrote my two verses but I stopped at ‘Just to get by, just to get by.’ Kanye wrote the hook. I laid it and invited him to the studio to listen to it. He was like, ‘Let's give it a gospel feel and get the Harlem Boys Choir.’ I was like, ‘That’s a great idea’ and we tried to get them but they were too expensive. He ended up doing that later in his career though.

“So he wrote a hook and he was like ‘We’re gonna try to find a gospel choir,’ and he sang it. For a month or two I had a version of ‘Get By’ with Kanye singing the hook. I went to my friend Kendra Ross, who was one of my favorite singers—she’s a church-going person—and asked her to bring some of her church friends into the studio and they came and recreated what Kanye wrote.

“Kanye was trying to get a deal on Rawkus at that time. Kanye used to be up in the Rawkus office every day but they really didn’t understand him as an artist. They really wanted his beats, which is why they entertained him. From day one, the whole industry was like, ‘These beats are just incredible.’ But he would rap all the time and no one was feeling him.

“I am proud to say, from the first time I heard him rap, I thought he was one of the best rappers I had ever heard. I was like, ‘Why is no one feeling him?’ That’s why I brought him on tour with me. I was like, ‘Yo this guy’s raps are just on some other shit. He’s really good.’

“I get my props for that, but Kanye deserves those props. I didn’t do it because he was my homeboy. We didn’t even know each other like that. I did it because he was that dope and he made my show look better.”

Talib Kweli f/ Mos Def, Kanye West, Jay-Z & Busta Rhymes "Get By (Remix" (2003)

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Album: N/A
Producer: Kanye West
Label: N/A

Talib Kweli: “There was one of these radio promo guys that worked at Geffen—I forget his name, because if I remembered his name I would blast him out right now [Laughs.]—that I told, ‘This single is incredible. It’s gonna change my career. We need to put this out right now.’ He was like, ‘This record is an underground rap record that I might even have to convince mix show DJs to play. No one's fucking with this, get out of here with this.’

“Then I was trying to put out ‘Get By,’ but by that time Geffen, the mother label was kind of done with the project. We put out ‘Good To You,’ we put out ‘Waitin’ for the DJ,’ they didn’t really crack, so they weren’t checking for ‘Get By.’ That was really the motivation behind saying it’s an underground record.

“So me and my manager pressed up some copies and we hired independent radio promotions. Enuff was the first DJ to really get behind it. Once Enuff got behind it, the whole L.A. Power 106 crew got behind it. Certain key DJs got behind it in key markets and it took off.


 

Once he said that I started thinking like, well how much is it gonna be? Jay hit me and was like, ‘What I charge people to get on records, your label’s not gonna be able to pay. So I’m not gonna be charging you for this.’ But a couple months had gone by and he hadn’t done it. So I’m like, it’s great that he’s not charging me, but is he gonna do it? I don’t know.


 

“I always wanted Jay-Z on the remix; that was my whole plan. My whole plan was, this remix is me and Jay-Z. But every time I saw Busta he’d be like, ‘Yo, you gotta let me on that ‘Get By’ record, you gotta let me get on that ‘Get By’ record.’ I was like, ‘Wow, I can get Busta on the record.’

“People at the label that were like, ‘No, don’t put Busta on it if you have Jay-Z on it because you want it to just be you and Jay.’ I’m like, ‘Listen, I cannot turn down one of the greatest greatest living embodiments of hip-hop.’ So even though my original plan was just me and Jay, when Busta asked me to be on it, I was like, ‘We gotta get Busta on this.’

“I had met Jay-Z for the first time ever after he did a show with The Roots. I don’t remember where I met him, but we exchanged two-way numbers. I had Jay-Z’s two-way address. So I hit him one day like, ‘Yo, can you do this ‘Get By’ remix?’ He was like, ‘Send me the record.’ I kept hitting him for a month after I sent it to him, like, ‘Did you get it? Did you do it?’ He was like, ‘Don’t worry—trust me, I’m gonna do it.’

“Once he said that I started thinking like, well how much is it gonna be? Jay hit me and was like, ‘What I charge people to get on records, your label’s not gonna be able to pay. So I’m not gonna be charging you for this.’ But a couple months had gone by and he hadn’t done it. So I’m like, it’s great that he’s not charging me, but is he gonna do it? I don’t know.

“So I think it was three months that had went by and one day I got a two-way from him like, ‘I did it.’ He sent it to me and then was like, ‘Yo, I should be on the remix.’ Now keep in mind, Kanye still didn’t have a deal at this point. I’m like, ‘Listen Kanye, I’ve already got Jay-Z and Busta on it. I don’t wanna have you rapping on it.’


 

Lyor Cohen sent a Cease and Desist out for the record like, ‘Why is our main Def Jam artist, Jay-Z, rapping on this underground guy’s record?’ That’s why there’s no official copies of that remix and it never officially came out.


 

“That same night, Yasiin came over and heard Jay on it. Yasiin was like, ‘Yo, I should get on this.’ I was like, ‘Listen, I appreciate it, but I really want this to be me, Jay-Z, and Busta.’ You know, in my mind, people have already heard me and Yasiin, people don’t know Kanye like that. I was really trying to micromanage how I wanted this record presented. I wasn’t really understanding that the record was so powerful, everybody just really wanted to be on it.

“I left the studio and Kanye and Yasiin both recorded their verses that night. I heard it and I’m like, ‘OK that’s cool, this can be the third remix; the Kanye and Yasiin Bey version.’ The day after they recorded it, Kanye took it to DJ Enuff and they played it on the radio.

“A month later, Lyor Cohen sent a Cease and Desist out for the record like, ‘Why is our main Def Jam artist, Jay-Z, rapping on this underground guy’s record?’ That’s why there’s no official copies of that remix and it never officially came out. That was a whole big process. I ended up being cool with Lyor later on in my career. I see him out now and we’ll say what’s up and shake hands. But that was some bullshit he did.”

Talib Kweli "Good To You" (2002)

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Album: Quality
Producer: Kanye West
Label: Rawkus / Universal Music Group

Talib Kweli: “I immediately wrote the verse for ‘Good To You’ after I got the beat. What I wanted to do with that song was write something that would lyrically and stylistically fit in with what was going on at the time. At the time, ‘Ether’ was the hardest record out.

“So I basically took ‘Ether’ and wrote my own rhyme. You can kick the words to ‘Good To You’ in the same rhyme pattern as his. Well, at least the hook and the first verse, I veered off towards the end of the song but that was definitely the inspiration for it.

“I wanted to put out ‘Good To You’ as the first single, to me that was a hit record. My plan was ‘Good To You,’ ‘Get By,’ and then ‘Waiting for the DJ.’ That was my plan. Rawkus was like, ‘No, ‘Good To You’ is an underground record. We need to put out ‘Waiting for the DJ.’’


 

They put out ‘Waitin’ for the DJ’ and something interesting happened; I got backlash from it because DJs—and I’m not gonna blast anybody, but there are specific DJs who are on the radio today—that were like, ‘Bilal sounds gay, and that’s why I’m not gonna play it.’ They told me this to my face.


 

“They felt like that though because they picked that beat. That record was their whole idea. They was like the beat already had a Bilal singing sample on it, so they picked the beat with a Bilal sample, and I was like, ‘Well I know Bilal, let’s get him on the song.’

“Even though they picked the beat and I liked it, I wanted it to be my third single. Not because I thought it was wack, but I felt like the streets needed to hear me on some rugged shit first, before I came with ‘Waitin’ for the DJ.’

“They put out ‘Good To You’ and Jarret later admitted to me that he only put out like 1,000 copies and he didn’t really promote it. When he was putting it out he was really telling people, ‘But we got this next record with Bilal coming.’ They underserved ‘Good To You’ because they weren’t really feeling it.

“I don’t say ‘pause’ but at that time on the radio, all the DJs were following Dipset, at least on the East Coast. Dipset had that whole ‘pause’ thing so every DJ was on ‘pause.’ Everything was ‘pause’ and ‘no homo’ on the radio all the time.

“They put out ‘Waitin’ for the DJ’ and something interesting happened; I got backlash from it because DJs—and I’m not gonna blast anybody, but there are specific DJs who are on the radio today—that were like, ‘Bilal sounds gay, and that’s why I’m not gonna play it.’ They told me this to my face.

“And in the video we were all dancing and Bilal was dancing funny, so they didn’t like it. It didn’t seem masculine enough for what was going on in hip-hop at the time. So that record didn’t really do anything."

Talib Kweli f/ Jeymes Samuel "The Proud" (2002)

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Album: Quality
Producer: Ayotollah
Label: Rawkus / Universal Music Group

Talib Kweli: “I forget the actual headline, but the day that Timothy McVeigh died, the New York Post ran a like, ‘We Killed Evil’ or ‘Evil Is Gone.’ I thought that was just some real bullshit.

"I’m like, they really got people convinced that this one man is the embodiment of evil and the state murdering him somehow solves some sort of problem in the world. It just struck me: I really didn’t believe in the death penalty.

“That was sort of the catalyst that started the thoughts to that rhyme. Then, there was a headline for a drunk cop ran over a bunch of black kids in Sunset Park. It was just a local news story, it wasn’t a national news story, but it was something that really affected me. Those were two events that over that year were heavy on my mind.


 

After 9/11, Jarret and Bryan from Rawkus asked me to change my professional name. They were like, ‘We’re not sure if you should be known as Talib Kweli.’ This is how crazy and backwards things were becoming.


 

“Then 9/11 happened. When 9/11 went down, the same sort of ignorance I had about the Internet, I had about the country. Or the same sort of assumptions. I thought people would be able to see through a lot of the propaganda that was about to happen. 

“The amount of blind patriotism I saw, it disheartened me because I felt like it came from a real ignorant and dishonest place. So as musicians, especially me being a musician with the name of Talib [which means 'seeker of truth'], we were asked to address this whole situation immediately. There was a musical response, everyone came together. I remember seeing a video with Nelly and everybody in the studio.

“Jarret and Bryan from Rawkus asked me to change my professional name. They were like, ‘We’re not sure if you should be known as Talib Kweli.’ This is how crazy and backwards things were becoming. 

“I was like, ‘I have to address 9/11 and what’s happening in America, but I’ve gotta be as honest as I can be about it.’ But how can I do that and be as revolutionary as a dead prez or a Michael Franti, but still have some understanding for why people would be scared or would want to be suddenly patriotic? So I tied all of those things together in that record.

“The only response that I’ve ever gotten from the past is people repeating lyrics. Like the line that goes, “Kurt Loder asked me what I say to a dead cop's wife/Cops kill my people every day, that's life,” has been something that people seem to really like. I haven’t gotten really any negative backlash from that record.”

Kanye West f/ Talib Kweli & Common "Get Em High" (2004)

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Album: College Dropout
Producer: Kanye West
Label: Def Jam / Roc-A-Fella Records

Talib Kweli: “When I was working on The Beautiful Struggle, Kanye came and played me some beats. By this time he was already a very successful artist, probably one of the most successful in hip-hop. So our dynamic changed slightly. Before he would play me beats; now he was way more busy.

“He was like, ‘Yo, I don’t have any beats because I’ve been working so hard on this other stuff, but I’ll come over there and make some.’ I was just like, ‘OK you can do that, but what if what you make, I don’t like? Are we going to be able to have another session?’ He was like, ‘Don’t worry about it, I’ll come over there and make something.’

“So I watched him make the ‘Get Em High’ beat. He made it in 15 minutes. He was like, ‘Yo the hook should be like, ‘Throw, throw your motherfucker hands—get em high.’’ Which I had done as a hook previously in my career.

“I slept on the simplicity of what he was doing. I was like, ‘I don’t know, ‘Throw your motherfucking hands in the air?’ That’s not really where I’m trying to go.’ Then he was talking about smoking weed and I was like, ‘I don’t know If I wanna make the weed record. Is there something else?’ He ended up playing me some other things. I think I ended up picking ‘I Try’ in that session.


 

Where my verse starts on ‘Get Em High’ is an entire bar after where I really started it at. He didn’t edit the rhyme. He just started it a bar late...Whoever flew it in when I sent it to him, flew it in wrong. So it mathematically was on beat, but it’s definitely not how I laid it. So I was very upset. I called Kanye and I was like, ‘Yo, this is crazy. How could you do this to me?'


 

“He was like, ‘Well shit, this is hot, and if you’re not gonna fuck with it, I’m gonna fuck with it.’ A few months later he was putting the final touches on The College Dropout, and he called me and said, ‘I have to turn in this album in two days, but I cannot do this album without you being a part of it. I’ve got this song over this beat I had made for you, remember ‘Get Em High?’ I have Common on it, and I want you to come and hop on it with us, but you’ve gotta do it right now.’ I was on tour in Europe. So I went and found a studio, recorded my verse, and sent it to him, and he put it on the album.

“A couple of months later, when the album came out, I was on tour again. I told them to stop at Target so I can pick up a copy of it. I don’t do this anymore, but back then, if I was on an album, I would listen to the whole album, rather than skip to the song I’m on to hear how I fit.

“So I’m listening to the album and I’m completely blown away by it. I’m like, ‘This album’s a classic. Oh my God, this is incredible.’ I’m waiting, I’m listening, and being like, ‘I can’t wait to get to my song.’

"When ‘Get Em High’ came on, where my verse starts on ‘Get Em High,’ is an entire bar after where I really started it at. He didn’t edit the rhyme. He just started it a bar late. So it’s like, when you count to four and you’re about to rhyme like, one...two...three...four, imagine if you got to five and then you went.

“So it’s like, whoever flew it in when I sent it to him, flew it in wrong. So it mathematically was on beat, but it’s definitely not how I laid it. So I was very upset. I called Kanye and I was like, ‘Yo, this is crazy. How could you do this to me? What’s going on?’

“I was like, ‘You gotta fix it for the second print of the album.’ He’s like, ‘Yo I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do that. But that shit sounds hot.’ I said, ‘It doesn’t sound hot and I don’t rap like that. I’m way doper than how you have me sounding.’ I was just upset about it.

“Then people started calling and emailing me, telling me how much they liked it. I was very dismissive of it because I felt like people just liked it because Kanye is popular. You’re just proud of me for being on the album. If you would have heard how I really laid it, you would understand. But after a month or two I got over it, and learned to embrace the verse and embrace the happy mistakes.”

Talib Kweli f/ Mary J. Blige "I Try" (2004)

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Album: The Beautiful Struggle
Producer: Kanye West
Label: Rawkus / Geffen Records

Talib Kweli:“‘I Try’ was a record that John Legend was on. I had already had John Legend on the album doing ‘Around My Way’ and I felt that was a stronger hook for him to be singing. So I was trying to figure out who I was going to put on ‘I Try’ and I decided on Mary J. Blige because she was on Interscope and I was putting out the album through Interscope.


 

Jimmy Iovine was like, ‘Mary is over. You don’t want Mary; you want Mya.’ This was a few months before Mary put out her highest selling album ever on Interscope. I love Mya, she's dope, but I grew up on Mary J. Blige. So I was like, ‘No, I want Mary.’


 

“Jimmy Iovine was like, ‘Mary is over. You don’t want Mary; you want Mya.’ This was a few months before Mary put out her highest selling album ever on Interscope. I love Mya, she's dope, but I grew up on Mary J. Blige. So I was like, ‘No, I want Mary.’

“Then, someone I knew, knew Kendu Bay. And Mary had recently gotten involved with Kendu. So I called Kendu up and he was like, ‘Yeah, Mary’s a fan.’ A couple weeks later Mary was in the studio and she heard the record and was like, ‘Yeah, I really like it.’

“She spent two hours laying it but she was trying to get to Crustacean, which is a restaurant in L.A.. But I remember she was like, ‘I’m trying to get to Crustacean, so I have a couple hours left. Let’s knock this out.’ And she was a consummate professional. She was dedicated to sounding great on that record. She definitely did it in a way where it’s like, ‘OK, you like it? We good? OK, I’m going to get some crabs.’”

Talib Kweli "Never Been in Love" (2004)

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Album: The Beautiful Struggle
Producer: Just Blaze
Label: Rawkus / Geffen Records

Talib Kweli: “Okayplayer—that whole crew and that community, especially the people that run Okayplayer—have been instrumental in my success and have one of the most supportive people. Way before anyone was on the Internet—way before I even understood the power of it—Okayplayer was on the Internet waving my flag.

“That line on ‘Get ’Em High’ where I’m like, ‘Always got something to say like a Okayplayer hater,’ comes from the fact that I didn’t understand the power of it. As far as blogs and chat rooms and all that, I didn’t really get into any of that until Myspace came out.

“Prior to that, I didn’t care what was going on on the Internet. I knew that the Internet was a useful tool for me, I knew that I had a lot of fans on the Internet, but I just couldn’t see myself spending time in cyberspace. I felt like I had real things to do.


 

I was working hard on my album and I’m arguing with my label. I was frustrated with everything that’s going on. Then, lo and behold, some kid puts my whole album on the Internet.


 

“So when I was working on Beautiful Struggle I didn’t realized how prolific the internet had gotten at stealing music. There was a new type of mentality with fans like, ‘I deserve to get all of your music for free.’ That’s not the way I grew up and that’s not how I approach my love for music.

“I was working hard on my album and I’m arguing with my label Interscope. At this point Geffen had gotten swept up by Interscope and I was frustrated with everything that’s going on.

"Lo and behold, some kid finds my CD, or I don’t know how it happened, and he puts my whole album on the Internet. This was in February. The album didn’t come out until September. So that leaked almost a whole year early.

“What I did, not understanding the beast that the Internet, I went off on this kid and wrote a two-page, profanity-laced letter, that I posted on Okayplayer, like, ‘Fuck this kid.’ What I didn’t understand was, a lot of people looked at people who leaked music as heroes because they liberated the music from ‘The Man.’

“I got a backlash that I had never received. This was the first time I received any real backlash in my career. I made the mistake in thinking every music fan was like me, that they were into supporting the artist.

“When I wrote that letter, I wrote it with the feeling that everybody was gonna rally behind me and that’s not what it was. Some people rallied behind me, but a lot of people were like, ‘Yo, you’re bugging.’

“So that was like a wake-up call to me. I still don’t agree with people taking music and putting it out for free if it’s not released. Once I put on a bar code and put it for sale, if you wanna steal it, that’s on you. That’s your karma.


 

What I did, not understanding the beast that the Internet, I went off on this kid and wrote a two-page, profanity-laced letter, that I posted on Okayplayer. What I didn’t understand was, a lot of people looked at people who leaked music as heroes because they liberated the music from ‘The Man.’ I got a backlash that I had never received. This was the first time I received any real backlash in my career.


 

“I think it’s extra wack to take something that clearly an artist is still working on because you want hits on your page or you wanna seem cool. That’s just the wackest, most bitch-ass shit ever to me.

"But even though I feel like that, that’s the world we live in today. So for me to complain about it, it’s like, No—you just gotta adapt. You gotta give it out for free before they get a chance to do that.

“Meanwhile, when I was on Rawkus, we worked at Cutting Room studios, years before anyone had heard of this place. Just Blaze was known as Justin the intern at Cutting Room. He was the guy that set up and engineered sessions.

“He was that guy that if you’d be there at four in the morning, he would be there. He would just be there all of the time. I didn’t even realize Just Blaze was Justin from Cutting Room until way deep into his career. Once I realized that, I realized I had a connection with him and was like, he’s one of my favorite producers, I might as well utilize this connection.

“At that point he was doing a lot of big, beautiful records with Roc-A-Fella. I would see him around town. I went to see him at Baseline a couple of times and didn’t pick anything, but then he sent me that beat and I was like, Word.”

Mos Def f/ Talib Kweli "Beef" (2004)

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Album: N/A
Producer: N/A
Label: N/A

Talib Kweli: “Yasiin writes verses years before you end up hearing them on records. That ‘Beef’ record ended up on the Mos Definite compilations. ‘Beef’ and ‘The Rape Over’ were just two things that he had as rhymes brewing in his head. I just added my verse to that, I don’t even remember what my verse was. I don’t even remember what beat we used on The Chappelle Show.

“I had a show at S.O.B.’s and we had sound check. Dave Chappelle wanted to film another Black Star segment, so he came down to soundcheck at S.O.B.’s while I was there and we just kind of cobbled something together which became known as the song ‘Beef.’ It’s never been recorded or pressed up in that way. Yasiin later used that verse on Mos Definite.

“I’ve known Dave Chappelle a long time. When I was in college, I went out with this girl who was an actress. She would go back and forth between me and Dave Chappelle. I knew him from The Nutty Professor and Half Baked. I would see him around the city but I didn’t like him because he was going out with the girl that I liked.


 

If you notice, Dave Chappelle's Rick James impersonation is different on the Reflection album than the one on the show. He had never met Charlie Murphy or Rick James at that time. His Rick James impersonation was more like a Bootsy Collins impersonation on our album.


 

“A couple of years later, De La had a show in Ohio near where Chappelle lives now. I went to see De La because I was working in Cincinnati with Hi-Tek. Dave was there and I mentioned the girl to him. I was like, ‘Years ago, I used to like this girl that you went out with,’ and we bonded over that girl.

“A couple of years later, when me and Hi-Tek were deep into working on the Reflection Eternal album, we were working at Electric Lady on 8th street in the Village. I would go out every day and go to the health food store; I was really into health food at the time.

"I saw Dave on the street and I was like, ‘Hey, Dave Chappelle.’ He was like, ‘What’s up, what are you doing?’ I said, ‘I’m working on an album,’ and he said to me, ‘I’ve never seen an album recorded. I would love to come see that.’ I said, ‘Come upstairs.’

“From that point on for a couple of months, he came to every session and just hung out. He would just come, crack jokes, and hang out. That’s how he ended up being all over the album. We recorded way more things, skits and whatnot, than we ended up using on the first album.

“Like, he did Bill Clinton and he did a bunch of voices. If you notice, his Rick James impersonation is different on the Reflection album than the one on the show. He had never met Charlie Murphy or Rick James at that time. His Rick James impersonation was more like a Bootsy Collins impersonation on our album."

Talib Kweli f/ will.i.am "Hot Thing" (2007)

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Mos Def f/ Talib Kweli "History" (2009)

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Reflection Eternal f/ Jay Electronica, J. Cole & Mos Def "Just Begun" (2010)

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Album: Revolutions Per Minute
Producer: Hi-Tek
Label: Blacksmith Music / Rawkus Records / Warner Bros. Records

Talib Kweli: “I wanted to do a posse cut. I knew I wanted Yasiin on it and I knew I wanted Jay Electronica on it. But I hadn’t picked the beat. Me and Jay Electronica got in the studio and we went through beats and he picked that beat. He was like, ‘This is the one.’ So me and him rapped on it.

“I sent it to Yasiin and he said he was gonna get on it. But Yasiin’s schedule was hectic, he was doing a movie at the time. A month or two went by and he still hadn’t jumped on the record. I was like, ‘I don’t want it to be just me and Jay Electronica, the verses are too short. We need to get someone else on it.’

“So I was like, ‘Who’s an artist that people are most excited about?’ At that time, it was Drake. Drake had just signed to Young Money, he was really becoming prominent. But I didn’t know Drake. I didn’t have any outlets in how to get to him even though I was really a fan of his mixtape. So I first was thinking about getting Drake.

“But then I was like, ‘You know what? Drake is sort of on at this point. Who are people checking for, that’s not on, that I can really give an opportunity to? An artist that would just be fresher?’ And next in that line was J. Cole.


 

My curse in this business is always spotting dope rappers before anybody else cares about them. It’s like with Kanye—if I met Kanye when he was a way bigger artist, I may be more rich and famous. But I met him when no one was checking for him.


 

“I had one J. Cole mixtape, that’s it. I wasn’t as familiar with his music as some of his more diehard fans. But everything I heard from him was so ill. I knew he had just done something with 9th Wonder. I know 9th very well, so I knew I can get J. Cole easily.

“So I got J. Cole’s number. He hit me up and was like, ‘Yo, it’s an honor and a pleasure, I’ll come down right now.’ He came down, he laid his verse, he left. I was like, ‘Wow, that verse is incredible.’

“Then he came back two hours later, I didn’t call him, he just came back. He was like, ‘You know what I was thinking about it? I can do this verse better.’ And he laid another verse. I was about to put it out, and then at the last minute, Yasiin jumped on it.

“My curse in this business is always spotting dope rappers before anybody else cares about them. It’s like with Kanye—if I met Kanye when he was a way bigger artist, I may be more rich and famous. But I met him when no one was checking for him.

“It’s interesting, with the amount of people that are fans of J. Cole and Jay Electronica now, who just don’t know that record existed. I can tweet that record right now and people would go crazy like, ‘Oh my God is this new? This is crazy.’ But I mean, I’m being playful. I don’t really mean that as a bad thing. It’s a great thing.”

Kanye West f/ Consequence & Talib Kweli "Chain Heavy" (2011)

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Album: G.O.O.D. Fridays
Producer: Q-Tip
Label: Def Jam / Roc-A-Fella Records

Talib Kweli: “I went to Kanye's house the summer before he started dropping those records. He had just broken up with Amber Rose and there was a lot of boxes. It was like her stuff was being moved out of the house. But we just chopped it up about music for hours.

“It was him and Don C. and his man, Lil Man, and they all had on suits. I’m like, ‘What’s going on, did y’all just come from the awards?’ He was like, ‘Nah, this is how I’m dressing now. Rosewood—it’s my new thing.’

“I said, ‘What do you mean?’ He’s like, ‘The movie Rosewood, how all the black people had all the money back then. This how we gonna dress. As a matter of fact, I gave away all of my jeans. I have no more jeans.’ I was sitting there in a pair of jeans and sneakers. He was like, ‘I don’t even wear sneakers no more.’


 

It was him and Don C. and his man, Lil Man, and they all had on suits. I’m like, ‘What’s going on, did y’all just come from the awards?’ He was like, ‘Nah, this is how I’m dressing now. Rosewood—it’s my new thing...As a matter of fact, I gave away all my jeans. I have no more jeans.'


 

“We also talked about Egyptology. He was like, ‘Yo, I’ve been trying to read up about Egypt. I’m on this Pharaoh thing.’ I’m like, ‘That’s great. I’m fully supportive of that.’ Then we started talking about the album. He played me ‘Runaway,’ he played me ‘See Me Now.’ He was like, ‘This is gonna be my first single, ‘See Me Now.’

“He’s like, ‘Listen to what I say. I just said, ‘I walked in Nobu with no shoes.’ Did you hear me say that?’ He was really excited about that record I remember. But then he was like, ‘Yo, you should get on this album.’ I’m like, ‘Come on man, I should get on the album? All you have to do is give me a beat.’

“So I went back the next day and he told me he, ‘I did this rhyme when I went to Facebook. People seemed to really like it, so I’m gonna make a record out of it.’ When he kicked me the rhyme, that rhyme is just so unapologetically black. I was like, ‘That’s what this new album is gonna sound like?’ And he’s like, ‘Yeah.’

“I was like, ‘Shit, you got a beat for that?’ He played me the beat and I said, ‘Give me the beat, I’ll have something for you tomorrow.’ He gave me the beat, I recorded my verse, and sent it back to him. I didn’t know what he was gonna do with it, until one Friday it came out."

Talib Kweli f/ Sean Price "Palookas" (2011)

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Album: Gutter Rainbows
Producer: Marco Polo
Label: Blacksmith Music / Javotti Media / 3D

Talib Kweli: “Whenever I see Sean, he’d be like, ‘Yo Kweli, I’m the best rapper. Like, no one’s nicer than me—not even you.’ And I’d be like, ‘Sean, I’m the nicest rapper.’ He’d be like, ‘Nah, I’m the best rapper.’ I’m like, well we’re gonna have to do a song, and he was like, ‘I don’t know—I’m better than you.’ [Laughs.] I was like, ‘Alright whatever.’

“So I had got to the beat from Marco Polo. I was like Sean would be perfect for this. I gave it to him, and he was like, ‘Do you have something else?’ I remember thinking, ‘This beat is perfect for Sean. Why doesn’t he like the beat?’ I got disheartened, like, ‘Oh, he thinks he’s better than me and he don’t like the beat? Alright.’ So I did the song by myself.

“There’s this blogger, D Dot Omen. We had met because I had played ‘Just Begun’ at the end of a party when there was only like 20 people there in like Palo Alto, California. The next day, the guy had fucking footage of me playing the song at the party on his website. That’s how I met him.


 

There’s this blogger, D Dot Omen. We had met because I had played ‘Just Begun’ at the end of a party when there was only like 20 people there in like Palo Alto, California. The next day, the guy had footage of me playing the song at the party on his website. That’s how I met him.


 

“I emailed him and was like, ‘What are you doing? You’re killing me right now.’ He apologized and took it down but the compromise we made was, I’d give him something exclusive that he could post—so long as he didn’t post that. A year later, he’s still hitting me about the exclusive.

“So I had this Marco Polo beat. I don’t remember the exact circumstance, but I felt like I could just put it out. I gave it to D Dot and he put it out. Marco Polo hit me, like, ‘Yo, what the fuck? Why did you put that out? That’s a beat that I used for my next album.’ It was just miscommunication.

“Him and D Dot got into it. D Dot felt like he was being attacked because people were mad that it was on his website. But it was my fault. So there was this whole big confusion about the beat, and by this time I had agreed to put out Gutter Rainbows with Duck Down Records.

“It was Duck Down’s suggestion that we put Sean Price on the album, and I’m like, ‘I had asked Sean to be on one of these songs and he didn’t like the beat.’ I got back on the phone with Sean and sent it to him again, and he was like, ‘Yeah the beat is cool.’

“Then he laid it and he smashed it. Sean Price is the truth. I feel honored that I got to do a song with him. I feel like, you ain’t really from Brooklyn unless you do a song with Sean Price.”

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