Reflection Eternal was beautiful. The album had dazzling, energetic moments like “The Blast” and “Move Somethin’,” warm, refreshing tunes like “Africa Dream” and “Love Language” and candid, true-to-life street odes like “Down For The Count” and “Name of the Game.” Strong, native drums played throughout. Hot, insightful words were rapped throughout. Yes, when Talib Kweli and DJ Hi-Tek put that album together back in Fall 2000, they must have been trekking on some vibration from another time and place.
The terrific twosome will likely travel down a similar path together, but it won’t be anytime soon. Kweli’s new album, Quality (coming out August 2002), will feature an amazing blend of musical styles, but Hi-Tek’s won’t be one of them. Before you go and call XXL with rumors of another industry feud though, take it easy. There’s no beef. The 26-year-old Kweli just felt that it was time for him to show that his rhymes could bounce off some other producers’ beats. And it’s for that very reason the likes of DJ Quik, Kanye West and Jay Dee are providing sonic backdrops for Quality.
Don’t worry about Kweli. The super-talented MC will make it without Hi-Tek.
Hasn’t he already proven enough some mental toughness in Mos Def’s absence?
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Besides, an artist like Talib Kweli can’t fall off. Without him or J-Live or Common dropping lyrical dimes like Jason Kidd, most heads would be completely lost. The Brooklyn native recently sat down with HipHopDX on the road to talk about this very topic and a few others like the state of Black folk in America and the shakiness of the music industry.
What’s the philosophy behind touring when most people haven’t heard your new stuff yet?
Just to give people a sense that I’m around. I’ve been very successful with the touring. Me and Mos-before we did the Black Star album-toured for months. We went all over the place. All over the world. Before the Reflection album, I was on tour with Dilated Peoples. I was on Spitkicker. I was on OkayPlayer. What’s happened is I’ve been able to be successful. Like my record [Reflection Eternal], was the highest debut on Rawkus Records ever. I’m able to be successful because people see the show on tour without having a video or marketplace for a single. When we first released “The Blast,” Rawkus wanted to push the album back because they were like, “We don’t have another single. We don’t know what they’ll be playing.” But the album came out and did well anyway because I had been on the road so much.
You mentioned Rawkus. There has been a lot of industry shakedown lately-labels merging and folding. What’s an insider’s perspective on what’s happening?
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Basically, the business got too big for its britches. A lot of people last year sold a lot of records and it turned out to be a lot of acts that wasn’t really worth their salt. And now they’re putting out follow-ups and it’s not as interesting. The music got big in 2000, but it really wasn’t that good. Now, a couple of years later, people are actually checking for music but they’re not really findin’ nuthin’ that really talks to them.
Like with Ashanti’s album, people are going nuts over it because there’s really nothing else out there. It’s not that there’s nothing else out there, it’s just that Irv Gotti and the people at Murder Inc. [Ashanti’s label] have done a very good job in the last three years of figuring out their radio formula. It’s fool-proof. The Ashanti record is fool-proof. It could’ve had cows and goats on it before anybody cared. It’s about how they marketed and promoted it.
When the Roots performed with Jay-Z on MTV, Nas called them hypocrites. What do you think about the whole thing?
As much respect as I got for Nas I don’t think he was correct in that statement. I just think he was a little hot at Jay. He’s going to get at whomever is really down with him. I don’t think it’s really based on any disrespect for the Roots. I just think that’s how he felt at the time. He probably had some people around him saying some shit. But really, I write that one off.
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Talk of explosions, mail bombs and terrorists still lead the nightly news. What are your thoughts, six months later, of everything that has happened in New York?
That tragedy is a great tragedy, but what’s even more tragic is that that tragedy doesn’t make black people’s lives any less tragic. That’s what I was dealing with in my music before [September 11] and that’s what I’m dealing with afterwards. [The threat of terrorism] brings war and all of the other stuff that people weren’t dealing with in this country to a new height, but it’s not like it wasn’t already there before that.
On a lighter note, how does it feel making music that people genuinely love to listen to?
It just makes me feel like I’m on the right path and everything.
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Whose music do you love to listen to?
Man, there are thousands!
Who are some of the ones outside of the hip hop realm?
I listen to a lot of Nina Simone, Stevie Wonder, Steely Dan, Aretha Franklin. There are so many. Thousands.
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With all of the interviewing and touring, is rapping still fun or is it just hard work?
It’s definitely still fun. I mean, it’s a job. It’s hard work. I ate in the car over here. I haven’t showered or anything. It’s hard work. I’m working. But it’s worth it because it is fun. A lot of times people think that if you ‘re doing what you love for a living that somehow you don’t work as hard as everybody else, or somehow you’re not responsible because your job don’t make you miserable. I work hard.
Speaking of hard work, your boy, Mos Def, is doing his thing on Broadway, in movies and in the recording studio. Is he spreading himself too thin?
Not at all. I mean, Mos is able to handle it. He’s a strong black man. He can do whatever he wants to do.
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Are you all going to do something in the studio together again?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’re constantly working on a Black Star album.
