Album Review: Talib Kweli "Ear Drum"

Talib Kweli dropped classic albums collaborating with Mos Def and DJ Hi-Tek when he was with Rawkus. Years later, he has yet to make music like he did back then, dropping a series of mediocre solo efforts. This is his first album on his own record label. Let's see if that makes a difference.


EVERYTHING MAN

Not a big fan of the mellowed-out beat but Talib rips his verses. Hopefully a sign of things to come.

NY WEATHER REPORT

Talib sounds hungry on this track too which is good considering he seemed to get worse and worse with each release before this. The beat on this kind of sucks though.

HOSTILE GOSPEL

Not feelin the marching band drums. Or the choir for that matter. Not bad but not too good either.

SAY SOMETHING

This one is all over the place. It comes in with the Lords Of The Underground, “Funky Child” horns and then is just a drum loop then there are like two loops that kick in at random times. Anyway, Talib and Jean Grae come correct on a track about, what else, wack MCs. Not the most novel idea but a hot track.

COUNTRY COUSINS (FEAT. UGK)

Kweli and UGK rap about how they like rappers from everywhere. Surprisingly, whoever made this beat (probably Kanye) nearly pulls of the Earth, Wind, and Fire ( I think?) sample. Cool track anyway.

HOLY MOLY

This is sort of a strange beat. I think Dilla did it which would make sense considering all the weird stuff he did to impress Madlib. Kweli continues to impress my lyrically however.

EAT TO LIVE

A deeper track about being black and under-privileged. This sounds like a bad track off “Beautiful Struggle.”

IN THE MOOD

At this point I can’t even listen to how Talib is rapping because I can’t get passed these awful beats. This beat is a women saying “moooooooooooooooood” with bongo drums.

SOON THE NEW DAY

I never really liked girl tracks. Especially ones over these slow R&B type tracks.

ELECTRIFY

This track is about people criticizing him and stuff. He even mentions people questioning his beat selection which is ironic I guess because this beat is boring as hail.

HELL

Talib raps about religion over yet another underwhelming beat.

MORE OR LESS

I posted the video of this a while back. Just pure heat. Dope concept, execution and of course Hi-Tek comes correct on the beat. Best of the album so far.

THE PERFECT BEAT (Feat. KRS-One)

This track was really ok until KRS ruined it.

HOT THING

Another girl track. While better than the first one, it’s a little stripped-down for its own good. Peace to the fake Pharrell on the hook.

OH MY STARS

Well a kid starts rapping on this which is cliché and is always stupid. Once Kweli kicks in its better but the R&B guys on this ruin it.

LISTEN

The single that came out a while back. The beat is very dope and Talib’s flow is nice too. Definitely one of the album’s better tracks.

OVERALL: Well I’m a little disappointed by this effort. After hearing “Listen” and “More Or Less” I expected big things only to find that they are the album’s best tracks. Still it’s a solid album and probably Kweli’s best since the Reflection Eternal album.

BEST TRACKS: “Say Something”, “More Or Less”, “Listen”