Talib Kweli – Ear Drum
Rating: 
Review Date: August 21, 2007
Website: Talib Kweli Website
Label: Blacksmith
Talib Kweli “Ear Drum” Album Review
Motherfuckers ain’t got no class man. Everybody knows that this album, plus or minus a bonus track or two, leaked like two months ago. And what can I say? Shit like that happens. But almost immediately after the leak, people started rushing all over the Internet waiving their “I’m a bootlegger” flags for everyone to see. The same hypocrites that complain about cats like 50 Cent selling more records than Talib Kweli took full advantage of the opportunity to snatch Kweli’s music … and then had the nerve to post early reviews and brag about it like they’re exempt from being considered freeloaders.
Now don’t get me wrong … I picked up the leaked copy too. But I vowed not to post anything on it until its release date. And I still walked up to Fat Beats to pick up a real copy this morning – in the pouring rain no less. We should all purchase this album for real. I think we owe Kweli that much. After all, he gave us “Liberation” for free, right? And he is one of the greatest MCs of our time, right? Personally, he’s #1 in my book. If you feel even remotely the same, you owe it to him to buy “Ear Drum” and contribute to his cause.
But I gotta say, it was nice getting an early copy of this album. Now that I got this website, I spend all my free time reviewing new hip-hop music: An album a day on average. While this gives me the opportunity to hear all kinds of hot shit, I seldom get the chance to sit on an album like I used to – never get to marinate on it like I should. Back when “Reflection Eternal” dropped, that CD didn’t leave my deck for like three months. And to this day every time I listen to it, it just gets better and better. By getting an early copy of “Ear Drum,” I was given the same opportunity. I’ve listened to this album probably forty times through in the past two months, and it just gets better and better every time I listen to it.
Ear Drum – Production
The production on “Ear Drum” is similar to “Reflection Eternal” in the sense that every track takes a different direction and showcases one of Kweli’s different lyrical abilities, but dissimilar in that the album doesn’t rely solely on Hi-Tek to create the perfect backdrops for Kweli’s vocals. Madlib injects soulful production in Everything Man, Eat To Live, and Soon A New Day. Will.I.Am contributes a couple radio-friendly beats in Say Something and Hot Thing. And the legendary Pete Rock added his signature jazzy production techniques to Holy Moly and Stay Around.
While these standards formed the backbone of the album’s sound, the real gems were found within the individually produced tracks that laced the rest of the album. It was as if Kweli just went around picking and choosing between the tightest beats he could find for “Ear Drum.” Just Blaze’s Hostile Gospel is a spiritually inclined banger that relies on piano chords and a gospel choir. Kanye West’s In The Mood is a master-sampled symphony of beats, sounds and mixes.
Hi-Tek’s More Or Less is a ridiculously dope experimental track that mixes a subtle low-riding baseline with synthetic keys and symbol crashes. Swift D’s The Perfect Beat comes pretty close to being just that – or at least the perfect beat for Kweli and KRS-One, two of the greatest in history, to rip it back and forth. And Kwame’s Listen!!! earns the album’s tightest track honors with so many different elements that I couldn’t possibly attempt to describe the sound it creates. Every track on this album bumps from start to finish, and demonstrates the wide range of quality production that exists in hip-hop these days.
Ear Drum – Lyrics
It should come as no surprise that Talib Kweli came correct lyrically in “Ear Drum,” especially since he has never once failed to do so throughout the course of his career. Nonetheless, Kweli always manages to amaze me with the words, thoughts and points that he so effortlessly creates when he rhymes.
Eat To Live is a deep MF Doom “MMM Food”-ish type of track in which Kweli seems to switch back and forth between food politics and industry topics. In the second verse I don’t know if he’s talking about food or hip-hop:
My rhymes got nutritional value
I get it how I live – it’s critical when the conditions allow you
Do you and trust the critics without you
Try to write shit about you
But they can’t make a living without you
You gotta watch what the media feeds you
And don’t be a poison animal eat it neither
It’s harder than it sounds ‘cause
Nowadays they put that swine in everything
From white sugar so addictive it’s pure cane
They got pork in the toothpaste, soda in the Sunny D
Jello brand gelatin is laced with delecitin
In Africa they starving, over here the food will hurt you
The cows gone mad and the chickens caught the bird flu
It’s too ill how the food kill – it’s like blue steel
Lies never set you free but the truth will
The truth still matter the proof is in the batter
Or the pudding, you can tell we eatin’ good, we getting’ fatter
In Give ‘Em Hell, Kweli serves up three intellectually relevant verses on the state of religion in our world, and criticizes our ongoing religious feuding. The following verse questions some major beliefs of Christianity:
Every Sunday pressing up catching gossip at its worst
Couldn’t see the difference in the Baptist and the Catholic church
Caught up in the Rapture of the first chapter and second verse
If we all God’s children, then what’s the word of the reverend worth?
Naturally that’s confusion to a yungen trying to follow Christ
Taught that if you don’t know Jesus than you lead a hollow life
Never questioned the fact that Jesus what Jewish not a Christian
Or that Christianity was law according to politicians
Who was King James and why did he think that it was so vital
To remove chapters and make his own version of the Bible?
They say Hell is underground and Heaven is in the sky
And they say that’s where you go when you die
But how they know?
My favorite verse on “Ear Drum” was from More or Less, a lyrically creative track in which Kweli recommends what we need a little bit more of, and a little bit less of. The following verse seems to sum it up perfectly:
More franchising less sanitizing
More uprising less downsizing
More enterprising less sympathizing
More building less destroying
More jobs less unemployment
Let’s give the devil less enjoyment
More originality less biting off Pac and BIG
More community activism less pigs
More Blacksmith and Def Jux
Less Geffen and the rest cause the rest suck
They got the shit all messed up
More marijuana less coke
More accountability from politicians before we shouting ‘Let’s Vote!’
More schools less prisons
More freestyling less written
More serious shit and less kiddin’
More history less mystery
More Beyonce less Brittany
More happiness less misery
More victory less losses
More Rawkus we all bosses
Of course it’s reflection
I could go on and on with quotable verses from this one. Add on some spectacular guest appearances, with dope verses from Pimp C and Bun B of UGK, Jean Grae and the Strong Arm Steady crew, and great interludes sung by Norah Jones, Dion, Musiq Soulchild, and Justin Timberlake, and you have a near-flawless album that provides tracks for old and young, for underground and mainstream, for hip-hop and beyond.
Overall, “Ear Drum” is a spectacular album that easily places among the year’s best. Another classic by Talib Kweli. If you don’t agree, you might just have something wrong with your ear drum. Get it? “Ear Drum.” Pick up a copy and see for yourself. Peace.
Related:
If you liked this album, you have to check out Talib Kweli and Madlib’s “Liberation”. In celebration of free hip-hop downloads, you should also go download Bisc1 “Stay Up Project” Mixtape. And while you’re at it, peep Andromeda’s “Blue Collar Music” – another great project that seems related to this album.
Album Track Listing:
- Everything Man
- My Weather Report
- Hostile Gospel, Pt. 1 (Deliver Us)
- Say Something feat. Jean Grae
- Country Cousins feat. UGK
- Holy Moly
- Eat to Live
- In the Mood
- Soon the New Day feat. Norah Jones
- Give ‘Em Hell
- More or Less feat. Dion
- Stay Around
- Hot Thing
- Space Fruit (Interlude)
- Perfect Beat feat. KRS-One
- Oh My Stars feat. Musiq
- Listen!!!
- Go with Us feat. Strong Arm Steady
- Hostile Gospel, Pt. 2 (Deliver Me)
- Nature feat. Justin Timberlake
dex wrote:
I gotta say, I was starting to wonder about Talib after hearing a few mixtape tracks that had come out. I didn’t really even like the More or Less single – but a lot of the cuts on here are really damn good. My favorite is probably the Country Cousins feat UGK cut, but there’s plenty more on here. Good review.
Posted on 24-Aug-07 at 8:11 am | Permalink
Dan Love wrote:
Easy man,
Nice review, although I take issue with your stance on ‘freeloaders’. Although posting links to a leaked album in its entirety carries with it certain moral ambiguity, I don’t really see how delaying a review until the release date really makes any difference. You yourself admit to having downloaded a copy of the leaked version, enjoyed it and subsequently bought it, so what difference is there between what you have done and those that have reviewed the album in the run up to the official release date?
Although the internet may prove a damaging force for record sales, a review only serves to shine more light on a release and build hype surrounding an album. It doesn’t equate to a lost sale, but rather benefits the artist by promoting their work. You can’t have it both ways: bitchin’ about bootleggers and then admitting that you too grabbed a copy of the album prematurely only serves to contradict your argument.
It’s all good, but whilst denouncing the ‘bootlegger flag’ , isn’t that what you have done with this review, despite posting it on the official release date?
Keep doing what you’re doing,
Dan
Posted on 27-Aug-07 at 4:51 pm | Permalink
Geno wrote:
thank you Kweli for trying to wake American’s up to the real country that surrounds them. stop letting money and hate run this country.
Posted on 17-Sep-07 at 6:11 pm | Permalink
Teeee-Bird wrote:
Couldn’t have said this any better than you did. Absolute album of the year!!
My only request? You got to speak more about the production of “Givin Em Hell”. Aside from that, this cd is ON F-I-R-E!!!!!!
Posted on 28-Sep-07 at 9:48 am | Permalink
anonymous wrote:
The album is like a double album with 20 tracks. I’m about half way through and I like Say Something and My Weather Report. I like this album better then his first two. It has a more updated sound and sounds more New York especially in some parts. It’s nice how he adds a lot of different sounds to his album giving a lot of thought for each song.
Posted on 19-Sep-10 at 9:28 am | Permalink