{"id":981,"date":"2014-02-28T07:33:24","date_gmt":"2014-02-28T12:33:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/?p=981"},"modified":"2014-03-07T09:48:21","modified_gmt":"2014-03-07T14:48:21","slug":"talib-kweli-gravitas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/talib-kweli-gravitas\/","title":{"rendered":"Talib Kweli <br>Gravitas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/talib_kweli-gravitas.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-982\" alt=\"Talib Kweli, Gravitas\" src=\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/talib_kweli-gravitas.jpg\" width=\"250\" height=\"250\" srcset=\"https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/talib_kweli-gravitas.jpg 250w, https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/talib_kweli-gravitas-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/><\/a>Elder statesmen status is a difficult achievement in hip-hop. So many artists either burn out or fade away, it\u2019s amazing when one makes it to a third album, let alone out of the decade. A special tip of the cap goes to those who manage to stay active way past the industry\u2019s standard sell date. Brooklyn MC Talib Kweli has earned his status. After debuting on the 1997 album <i>Doom<\/i> by Cincinnati\u2019s Mood, Kweli has carved out a career that has seen stints in Reflection Eternal (with DJ Hi-Tek), Idle Warship (with Res and Graph Nobel), Black Star (with Mos Def), and of course, as a solo artist. In continuing with his newly prolific profile, Kweli has self-released his sixth solo studio album, <i>Gravitas.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Over the course of his career, Kweli has been dogged by two labels, the first being the champion of the indie underground and the second is that of a \u201cconscious\u201d rapper. While the former is more a byproduct of his time on underground flagship label Rawkus during their heyday, the \u201cconscious\u201d label is a trickier one to unpack. Coming as it does with a specific set of expectations, such typecasting is the kind of thing most artists would runaway from. After all, everyone is a hipster but no one wants to <i>be<\/i> a hipster. <i>Gravitas<\/i> is a continuation of that odd tension in Kweli\u2019s career.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s been a type of constant pushback against expectations since Kweli\u2019s first solo record, <i>Quality<\/i>. He is a thoughtful writer with an activist and community improvement bent, but he\u2019s also a person who doesn\u2019t want to be serious all the time. As a result of wanting to show that he\u2019s not always this overly positive person, he slides into trying to be all things to all people, and on <i>Gravitas<\/i> that means coming off a bit scattershot. The main problem is that while Kweli is undeniably a gifted lyricist, sometimes he tries on outfits that don\u2019t quite fit. For example, on \u201cNew Leaders,\u201d he tackles a double-time Southern bounce flow on an equally up-tempo track. While he ably and nimbly attacks the track, it just doesn\u2019t sit right. Throughout the record, there\u2019s a weird ping-pong of styles both vocally and bitwise that instead of showing versatility knocks heads.<\/p>\n<p>Lyrically, <i>Gravitas<\/i> is as focused as ever. Going from straight knowledge kicking on the Illuminati conspiracy skewering \u201cThe Wormhole\u201d to the narrative commentary of \u201cState Of Grace\u201d and the verbal flexing of the Raekwon-assisted \u201cViolations,\u201d Kweli sounds as comfortable as ever. But for whatever reason, something still feels off. Perhaps it\u2019s a sequencing problem; for example, the two unabashed love songs are pushed to the end of the album. There may not be a \u201cright\u201d answer, but maybe some tweaks would make the record hang together better. It would be one thing if the whole album was a swing and a miss, like the waste of Gary Clark Jr. on \u201cDemonology,\u201d but <i>Gravitas<\/i> is a solid record. It\u2019s just not the record you want it to be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Elder statesmen status is a difficult achievement in hip-hop. So many artists either burn out or fade away, it\u2019s amazing when one makes it to a third album<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[34,415],"class_list":["post-981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-reviews","tag-album-review","tag-talib-kweli"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Talib Kweli Gravitas - The Agit Reader<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/talib-kweli-gravitas\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Talib Kweli Gravitas - The Agit Reader\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Elder statesmen status is a difficult achievement in hip-hop. So many artists either burn out or fade away, it\u2019s amazing when one makes it to a third album\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/talib-kweli-gravitas\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Agit Reader\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/TheAgitReader\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-02-28T12:33:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-03-07T14:48:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/talib_kweli-gravitas.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dorian S. 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