MONDAY

• Home
• Video
• Podcasts/RSS 
• Local Showtimes
• Past Shows
• Blogs
• About the Show
• Tell Tavis
• Features
• Mobile

RELATED LINKS

• Mr. Kweli's official site
• Q&A with Mr. Kweli
• Blacksmith Music

E-mail a friend

Tavis: I'm pleased to welcome Talib Kweli back to this program. The talented hip-hop artist is out this week with his fourth solo project and the first on his own label - Blacksmith Music. The disc is called "Eardrum -” I love that - "Eardrum," and features collaborations with Kanye West, Justin Timberlake, and Nora Jones. From the new disc, here is some of the video for "Hot Thing."

[Clip]

Tavis: Good to see you again.

Talib Kweli: Good to see you too.

Tavis: How you living?

Kweli: Good, man.

Tavis: You are, like, the only person I know who, like, in one day is on two CDs that drop. So yesterday, the 21st. So, your CD, "Eardrum," drops yesterday. We'll talk about that in just a second. But also on the 21st, the new disc from Dr. West.

Kweli: Yeah, shout out to Dr. West, yeah.

Tavis: So the first track - and we'll come to yours in a second - the first track on the new West CD - by the way, Dr. West's CD is called "Never Forget : A Journey of Revelations." Dr. West is scheduled to be on this program in a few days from now to talk about his new project. But the first track on the West CD is called "Bushanomics." Tell me about this track, "Bushanomics."

Kweli: "Bushanomics," I didn't know he was going to call it that. Cornel West has been, like, somebody I've had a great amount of respect for, for a long time. There's only a select group - and you're in this group - of Black people who can speak to all of us, who understand the language of hip-hop and then can reference it by talking about specific artists and specific songs, and who can still intellectualize and still have something that's critical and positive to say, and he's one of those people.

And for him to do a CD, which is great - they sent me the track; they didn't give me any boundaries. They said, "Rap about what you want to rap about." And I thought about what Dr. West might appreciate, and that's what I rapped about. And they called it "Bushanomics."

Tavis: Well, it's a cold track. "Bushanomics" is the first track on the new CD from Dr. West on the Hidden Beach label. And any time I'm mentioned in the same sentence from Dr. West, much less a compliment from you, I take that. So thank you, I'll take that. (Laughter) Matter of fact, I want a copy of that tape. That said, the new CD from you that dropped yesterday on the 21st, "Eardrum." All these collaborations - Kanye, Nora.

Kweli: Yeah.

Tavis: Yeah.

Kweli: Yeah, well, Kanye has been a friend of mine for a long time. He started his career by working with me, and Nora Jones, she in Brooklyn and she - Questlove gave me her e-mail address; I e-mailed her - hey, my name is Kweli; I got a song I want you to be on. She hit me back, like, five minutes later, like, "Cool." (Laughter) "Send me the song." Got in the studio, we knocked it out. We went to Electric Lady, knocked it out.

Man, she's so gracious and so talented, man. And Madlib, who's from Los Angeles, produced that track. I did a free album with Madlib called "Liberation," but he did three joints on my new one and he did a good job with that.

Tavis: Tell me in terms of the sound what you've tried to put on there, how this stacks up, how it rates, how it compares, what the difference is to your other stuff.

Kweli: Right. Well, I'm glad you said that. With albums - I look at albums like children. So you don't compare your children, so I don't love one more than the other. But definitely with the sound, I wanted - I called it "Eardrum" because people look at me as a deep lyricist. They're like, “Oh, Kweli's lyrics are so profound.”

But I look at my career and I look at the fact that I worked with Hi-Tek early in his career. I looked at the fact that Kanye West, as far as the type of hip-hop I do, was introduced through my record "Quality." He produced four records on "Quality." I've worked with Just Blaze, Madlib, the Neptunes. I feel like I've worked with the best producers in the business of hip-hop.

And so with this album, I wanted to just work with who I felt like was the best. People who exemplify the sound that I grew up listening to, and the sound I grew up listening to was, like, Pete Rock, Diamond D, Showbiz, DJ Premier. So I got Pete Rock - you know what I'm saying - people were influenced by him. Even if they're successful like a will.i.am or a Just Blaze or a Kanye, they sound is still rooted in that type of hip-hop.

Tavis: To your point now - and everybody makes this point; I was just reading a piece about the West CD that just said that your performance on "Bushanomics" just cements all over again the fact that you reign supreme when it comes to spitting lyrics. Where did that come from for you? Everybody has their own way, their own style - even Jay-Z. Jay-Z and everybody else says you are the best lyricist out there. Where does that come from, that skill?

Kweli: Well I think it's just the fact that I've mastered my craft of pure lyricism. Jay-Z, he has business ventures and he's become the most popular MC of our time because of his business acumen and his ambition. I roll with a crew - I feel like my crew is the most talented people doing it. I feel like when you talk about the vanguard of hip-hop, you're talking about the Roots.

You're talking about Kanye, you're talking about Mos Def, you're talking about Common - people like that who people associate me with, and I'm proud to be associated with these people. But all these people have different things that they've brought into hip-hop. Mos has brought the - Mos and Common now are brought into the acting thing.

The Roots have a band, they're able to do the live band circuit, and with me, it hasn't been any of that. It's just been the pure lyricism. Hasn't been any movie, hasn't been any band behind me. So when you think about well, what is it that's the draw, for me it's the lyrics. And I'm able to maintain this level of company with all these other people up here because of nothing but the lyrics, and I think that's what it is.

Tavis: Let me ask a stupid question - are you comfortable with that? Because everybody - this is a game where everybody wants more.

Kweli: Of course.

Tavis: They want to add on.

Kweli: Of course, it's competitive.

Tavis: So are you comfortable with that?

Kweli: I have become comfortable with it, because it's like I compete with everybody, but at the moment when I have my own record label and I have to figure out what it is that I need to do, what is my position? I feel like my position is like the glue or like the flag-waver for what we're trying to do. Everybody's so talented, everybody's a visionary - Common's a visionary, Kanye's a visionary - that sometimes I feel like, okay, well, what's my job?

My job is to look at all that and put it in perspective. So when you see a show, when I do a show I call everybody. It's not no ego involved. It's like I call all my friends. So when you see a Kweli show, you might see Common hop on stage, Mos Def hop on stage, because I'll reach out and I'll call them because it's important. That camaraderie and that unit is very important to me.

Tavis: I mentioned this is your fourth solo project, the first, though, on your own label. I assume, if you're like everybody else I know in this town, when you get a chance to do your own thing, there are usually a bunch of reasons that push you in that direction. (Laughter)

Kweli: That's a fair assumption to make, yeah.

Tavis: Yeah, but when you own your own thing, you (unintelligible) got sick of something. Like Fannie Lou Hamer - you sick and tired of being sick and tired of something or somebody. So tell me the back story for why the time was now for you to do this on your own label.

Kweli: Well, I'm glad that 50 and Kanye are competing - have you heard about this thing where they competing to see who sells more record?

Tavis: How could you miss it?

Kweli: Yeah, I think it's - (laughter).

Tavis: And when is that day? When does that stuff -

Kweli: September 11th.

Tavis: September 11th.

Kweli: Yeah. Which I think is genius on both they parts for how they doing it, because it's going to mean a lot for hip-hop and they're going to sell a lot of records doing that.

Tavis: Who's going to win?

Kweli: I don't know.

Tavis: Yeah.

Kweli: I don't know.

Tavis: Yeah.

Kweli: It could go either way with that one. But I bring that up because 50 and Kanye in particular had a lot to do with my decision. And I was on Geffen Records, and they weren't supporting my career at all. I was a tax write-off, and everything you've seen from me in that time - from the "Never Been in Love" video, from mix tapes - whatever you saw is something that I did. My own money.

I was spending my own money on videos and working to promote myself. I was running a record label, so I might as well get paid for it. The way I look at it's like this: I've achieved, like, a cultural respect, and people respect what I do, and I look at where I come from. My parents are both professors. I come out of academics - there was a lot of academic discussion in my home.

And so we weren't rich by any - we weren't rich at all. But I had things in my house culturally that prepared me for success. I'm successful because of what my parents gave me. I look at Kanye, who didn't have success early on who got into a near-fatal car accident. I look at 50, who didn't have a successful childhood at all and got shot nine times and got dropped and came back and became the hottest thing on the streets.

I'm already signed to a record label at this point in 2004, so I'm like, what is it that they're doing that I'm not doing? Why is it that these artists who have come in the game after me are able to develop their buzz bigger than me, and I've been here for a long time? So it made me check what I was doing. It's like, I'm being too dependent on the business - on the music industry - to determine what I'm going to do for my career. If someone can get shot and come back and become the biggest artist, then I'm not doing enough of my job.

Tavis: There's another take on that, though - there's another take on that, and I'm not trying to cast aspersion on them, the names you've mentioned. The other take on that, though, Talib, would be this: that the more you tell the truth, the more difficult it is to sell that. That truth doesn't sell the way that other stuff sells.

Kweli: Oh, I disagree, though.

Tavis: Well, I'm not - you disagree with that?

Kweli: Yeah, I'll tell you why.

Tavis: Your stuff is so real that the industry ain't trying to push - they ain't trying to sell what you offering, and that's why you don't do what somebody else does, because it's too much truth behind it.

Kweli: But I will say that the reason why 50 Cent sells millions of records, the reason why Eminem sells millions of records, the reason why Kanye West - which Kanye, 50 Cent, and Eminem come from three different perspectives.

Tavis: Fair enough.

Kweli: But the one thing that's in common is the honesty and the truth, and that's what actually sells the records. Like, 50 created a perception where I'm selling you my real life. So you don't have to like it, you don't have to think it's positive for the community, but when you see 50 Cent when he first came out, before the movies, before the accolades, you were, like, this dude really is a drug dealer.

He's really telling us his life. When Eminem came out, it's like wow, he really has a problem with his moms, he really has a problem with his babymoms, with his girl. It's like people gravitate - Kanye won when he put out "Through the Wire" because he talked about what really happened to him. So in this business, the business is set up to follow.

So they'll have you believe and you follow whatever hit comes out, but the people who are truly successful are the people who are really coming from an honest place. An audience sees through all that other stuff.

Tavis: But I guess that's my - we're making the same point, two different ends of it, and my point is that nobody is more honest in terms of telling the truth about the - beyond yourself - about the human condition than you are. And I'm just saying that there's a different way to - people don't try to check for that all the time now.

Kweli: Yeah, I think it's not - it would be easy to say that the industry don't want me or somebody like a Common or somebody to succeed because we don't just deal with the negative and the positive, we deal with the whole community. We don't just deal with the strip club; we deal with picking up the kids at 3:00 as well.

Tavis: Absolutely.

Kweli: I will say that the business model has to be there. It's not as sinister as they trying to hold the Black man down, but it is something where they don't get it, and you have to be creative and go above and beyond what the formula is to sell an artist like me. Now, if you're working in a record company and you're getting paid regardless of whether my record sells or not, there's no incentive for you to be creative to sell more product, whereas you could just put out something that sounds like 50 Cent and just win with that.

Tavis: You may be the only rapper - the only lyricist who grew up in a house, to your point that I wanted to get to - with two parents who were professors. So your house is all academic. How does that make the stuff that you do different than what else is out there? The fact that you had two parents in the home - unlike a lot of these cats - and that both of your parents were professors?

Kweli: Well, I find myself gravitating towards other artists who have parents who were professors, like Common and Kanye, who both they moms are professors, as well. But I think that the most important thing I've learned from that experience is being relevant and to your community. Making sure that your community builds you up and makes you who you are, so you always have to give back, in your music or through your actions.

That's something that I don't think came from academics but I think came from my parents just being involved in that level. And also just the work ethic. For teaching, if you want to be - dedicate your life to education, you're not going to get paid. You're going to work hard, and you're going to have a spiritual reward, but the financial reward ain't going to be there.

So you need to know that you have to work hard, regardless of whether or not the financial reward is there. And that hard work is going to mean something (unintelligible).

Tavis: He is the best lyricist around - not because I said so, because everybody with any sense says so. The new CD from Talib Kweli is called "Eardrum." It dropped yesterday. Add it to your collection. And what also dropped yesterday on the 21st, the new CD from Cornel West - "Never Forget: A Journey of Revelations." The first track on that, "Bushanomics," features Talib Kweli. Talib, all the best to you, man. Good to have you here, man.

Kweli: Thank you, man, it's an honor for me to be here (laughs).

Tavis: That's our show for tonight.