why is it difficult to relate to talib? i think you’re judging his content with the understanding that he isn’t from the hood. pretend for a moment that talib was from the hood and then listen to the music. if you still can’t relate to the music then i really don’t know what to say then…lol…chuck d talked about the police hardcore but he didn’t deal with them ALL the time. regardless, that doesn’t make his music any less meaningful. i know his parents were both professors…so what? dude, he’s from bk man, there’s struggle everywhere you go, even in the “cleanest” parts. he is speaking about his environment so he is keeping it real. if you really made a song about something you witnessed that you didn’t take part in, i wouldn’t doubt your ability to relate.

hostile gospel talks about a lot of his personal struggles. he talks about how hip hop culture has been raped severely and how it is being accepted as the norm. he is being viewed as “underground” and as a “backpacker” and that his music is “different”. i’m glad that he’s different. hip hop is about being unique and expressing himself. he is talking about the stupidness he has to put up with daily when he is tryin to live. i’m not sayin he’s poor but don’t you think its a struggle if a person who is great and legendary at their craft struggles to gain attention? he’s not one to talk about money but he’s human and therefore needs it. imagine if someone like tom brady didn’t get paid. sure, he doesn’t do a million commercials but he is excellent at the game and has the rings to prove it. but brady gets paid…now at least.talib is excellent at his craft and has the best rappers respect as rings but he isn’t getting paid.

your rite, that kanye song was dope! but not all people can relate to that particular kanye song. if you listen closely, it talks about how he as a black person has to work in a store which has predominately white consumers. it talks about the ironies of having to put black people at the front of the store being that he is a black person and how he had to do this even though he didn’t want to. look, i don’t know if you’ve been to the gap lately but most of the employees are white. and for that matter, most stores with an extreemly high percentage of white consumers don’t typically have black workers.

i’m not saying this is the best album ever in the history of man but you’re over criticising him. he doesnt talk about struggle on every song….you know, there’s more to music than just “i struggled this, i struggled that…and that why you need to respect me”.

Kanye also made “Diamonds are from Sierra Leone”. he’s never been a slave mining for diamonds but if you listen to him, you can understand the struggle. and talib was talkin about blood diamonds before kanye but no one cared because he’s not mainstream and he doesn’t have club beats.

There are young and/or ignorant people who read these posts. when you make you make such generalizations and come to non factual conclusions, your teaching them to think like that too. im not saying you gotta be a role model but man, you have a social obligation to speak the truth to the best of your ability. you have facts man but your making your criticisms off of harsh generalizations which tend to not have anything to do with the facts.

I think Talib’s problem is that he doesn’t talk about his OWN struggles. Therefore it is difficult to relate to him. Kanye’s College Dropout blew him up not only because he had swag and the music was good, but because people could relate to his struggles. “Spaceship” was a first person narrative about working in retail (i.e. The Gap). That song was hot because people could relate to it, it was creative in that no one had ever made a song about working a shitty retail job and because the actual music was good. It doesn’t matter what your struggle is, as long as it’s yours. I hate it when rappers talk about struggles that ain’t theres just like when “gangster” rappers talk about selling coke when they never did.

Despite giving Talib an ok review. I am still a big fan of Talib as the most uncompromising artist in hiphop who speaks his mind no matter what, I loved some of the songs on his last disc “beautiful struggle” such as “Going Hard”, “Around My Way”, “Ghetto Show”, “Black Girl Pain”, “Never Been in Love” and “Beautiful Struggle”.

His latest album has its moments, but you get the picture from reading the review.

where do you get off sayin talib should speak on his own struggles cause that’s what got kanye poppin? bro…talib was speakin struggle waaay before kanye was…matter of fact, talib helped bring kanye in the mainstream by bringing him on tour when no one else wanted too. they both have mad respect for each other. you don’t think talib knows struggle? dude, he is one of the most single handed underappreciated underpaid hip hop musicians in hip hop man. he coulda quit but he loves hip hop. do you think you have to be from the street to struggle? you don’t have to be from the street to understand how other’s struggle.

You must be from the south if your gonna say country cousins is the best song…ugk must be the only rappers you can relate too. all he talks about here is his outside influences beyond ny.

so what if he raps about other people’s struggles? if he doesn’t who will, lil wayne?

the reason why there is an old guy on “in the mood” is because the instrumentals are by an old guy, NOT KANYE WEST! He helped produce the song but the intrumentals are by roy ayers, a legendary jazz musician.

how isn’t his flow very well thought out? cause he doesn’t talk about money cash hoes? dude, he can rhyme fast slow intelligent or even dumb it down on country cousins for a person such as yourself. that’s what makes him greaat….the fact that he can pack so much in a verse that you gotta rewind it. he doesn’t make club music. my guess is your lyrical intellect is limited to someone like soulja boy.

The “chick” in the first song is an actual poet who actually admires he poetry.

your misinformed…seals do club predators to death….they have big heads and can’t fight much otherwise therefore, the metaphor is correctly used…maybe ur just one of those seals…lol

in “eat to live” your basically saying that cause he’s not from the ghetto that he doesn’t know what its like to starve. first of all son, he’s from brooklyn….if that aint ghetto enuff to you, you don’t know hip hop my miseducated brotha. look man, he’s commentating on the struggle, he’s not identifying and proclaiming that he’s from there. bruce springsteen talked about similar shit even though he wasn’t poor but people understood him…plus you missed one of the points of the damn song which is that his verses provide lyrical nutrition to no nonsense lil john vocabulary slangin youngns.

you got some serious haterade on talib man…like jay says…”if lyrics sold, id be, lyrically talib kweli”

man don’t hate on jt…it’s easy to hate on him just because he was part of n’sync and that he’s not black…dude, he can sing…period. so what of his past. he’s still a good singer. pac was dancin to ballerina shit in school in tights but does that make him a bad rapper? NO!

what’s wrong with “reading a good book”? so what if he sounds like that? hey buddy, that actually means he has a story to tell unlike fake rappers…i guess he’s guilty of keepin it real in hip hop by telling a story…if you hate stories then i guess you luv soilder boys and his struggles as a soilder and lil wayne’s struggles as a suburban youth in htown. i also guess you hate krs-one, rakim, kanye, jay, nas, run-dmc, a tribe called quest and the rest of real hip hop since they tell stories. i’m guessing you like stories that you actuallly understand and that you can judge correctly by the cover. im guessin your a dr. suess fan.

look, im not tryin to promote talib here, im simply stating that your not being objective at all. you don’t seem to have an understanding of hip hop at all. i don’t even know why u wrote this.. is this some cheap trick to lure bloggers to not listen to you. your facts are wrong.

In “listen” there is absolute subject matter being mentioned. he’s talkin about fusing words with melody.

wait…based on this girls pics below, i think i might know where ur comming from. you want stripper music. i bet they could write a better review than you!