Item 4
TALIB KWELI CO SIGNS FOR JEROME ALMON August 30th, 2007
Talib Kweli is on the phone from a tour bus that is slowly making its way towards our border. While Canadians seem to think that, unlike their southern neighbours, theirs is an international reputation beyond reproach, Kweli sees it differently.
"Other than making it utterly impossible for a young black man to get in the country, I really enjoy Canada. Canada has the worst customs in the world, and everyone on the bus should now be agreeing with me - they make it harder to get into the country than any other country in the world."
Others think so too. Al Sharpton's National Action Network released a statement that said that it believes Canada Customs engages in racial profiling, while, more recently, Jerome Almon of Detroit's Murdercap Records filed a $900-million lawsuit in federal court against the Government of Canada, the State Department and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice based on the same notion.
While Al Sharpton is an opportunist and Almon appears to be the same, not to mention borderline insane (he's subpoenaed everyone from Oprah to Paris Hilton), there's no denying that if you're a rap fan living in Canada, chances are you've got more unused ticket stubs than your indie rock friends. Chances are also good if you're a rap fan that you know to put some stock in what Talib Kweli has to say.
The Brooklyn-born, -bred and -based musician has been at the top of rap's underground since the late-'90s, starting with collaborative releases alongside Mos Def (as Black Star) and DJ Hi-Tek (as Reflection Eternal), and later as an acclaimed solo artist. His music has continued to contain the sharp and dexterous wordplay that frequently touches on socio-political themes, something that has, to his ire, labelled him a "conscious rapper."
"It's like any label: gangster rapper, pop rapper. I make conscious music, of course, but to just limit me as a conscious rapper, that's like saying that Jay-Z is just a gangster rapper. He makes some gangster music, but is it accurate to call Jay-Z a gangster rapper? No, he's way more than that, and I know that
I'm more than one category of hip-hop."
It's enough of an annoyance that he says that his next album is going to be called Prisoner of Conscious, but the one that Kweli is currently attempting to cross the border with is titled Eardrum, the first release on his new label, Blacksmith. It's blessed with a who's who of producers from Pete Rock to Kanye, but, as always, it's his voice that is its centre point - a voice that's been influenced by having worked in and owned a bookstore, not to mention being the son of two professors.
"I honestly think that if I wasn't rapping I probably would have ended up doing something in academics. But at the same time, I hated school, I quit college, I think I'm like the hip-hop version of my parents."
A parent of two kids himself now, he makes it clear that part of the perspective found in this latest album comes from his life experience.
"Of course, there are different responsibilities and different influences on your life, and the things that you see sometimes start to differ from your core fan base.
The way we present the music is going to be live, so that even if you're a 16-year-old who may not like an adult song like Hot Thing about the good things about a woman, they'll like Say Something, which is a little more kinetic."
A decade-long career as a musician has also given him some perspective on how his music is received. "What I find is for every positive review, there's a negative one, and for every negative, there's a positive - I feel like I have an equal amount. Right now, Eardrum is enjoying a great critical buzz, a lot of critics like my album and respect it and everything, but I bet you could find the same amount of people who are saying 'f*** Kweli.'"
Let's just hope those people don't work at the Canadian border. Talib Kweli
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