Talib Kweli
Talib " Kweli " Greene ( born October 3, 1975 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American rapper who is counted among the representatives of the Conscious Rap.
Life
Talib Kweli was born 1975 in Flatbush in Brooklyn, New York. His family put value on their African cultural roots. The name Talib comes from Arabic and means "student", Kweli is the Kiswahili word for " true ", " real" or "real".
Early in the school began his interest in language and its forms of expression: He read a lot and wrote short stories. He later studied experimental theater at New York University. There he met a kindred spirit named Dante Smith, later known as Mos Def With it connected him the love of hip-hop. Together, they took also Nkiru, one of the oldest African-American bookstore in Brooklyn and converted it into the Nkiru Center for Education and Culture. Kweli is the father of two children. Kweli is a supporter of the religious movement the Nation of Gods and Earths.
Musical career
His first appearances on published phonograms Talib Kweli had 1997 on the album Doom hip -hop crew Mood, produced by Hi- Tek.
Published in 1998 Mos Def and Kweli album as Black Star. The name she gave the album and as a duo, refers to the first shipping line from the United States to Africa, which belonged to a black man. The album was released on Rawkus and was partly responsible for the rise and reputation of the then young independent labels.
It was followed by the album Train of Thought, on the Talib Kweli collaborated with Hi- Tek under the name Reflection Eternal. Then Kweli released several solo albums on which he collaborated with different producers. In particular, so far the LPs Quality, Beautiful Struggle and Eardrum.
From Beautiful Struggle circulated several months before the official release, a bootleg on the Internet, on the unfinished versions of many originally intended for the planned album songs were to be found. Then Kweli was forced to take some new songs for the LP and to postpone the release. Some of the pieces included on the bootleg, which did not make it onto the final album were released on the mixtape The Beautiful Mixtape and right about now.
Beautiful Struggle marked Kweli's last collaboration with Rawkus. He then worked together with the record company Geffen Records. Since 2006, the rapper released on his own label, Blacksmith Records, which cooperates with the major label Warner Bros..
Discography
Albums
Mixtapes
- 2002: Top Kwelity Classics Vol 1
- 2004: The Beautiful Mix CD
- 2005: The Beautiful Mixtape Vol 2: The Struggle Continues
- 2005: Right About Now: The Official Sucka Free Mix CD
- 2006: Brooklyn, Tennessee
- 2006: Kweli: Confidential
- 2006: Blacksmith: The Movement
- 2007: Focus
- 2008: The Mixtape MCEO
- 2008: Reflections of the Coolest ( with Lupe Fiasco )
- 2010: The RE: Union (with Hi- Tek as Reflection Eternal & Statik Selektah )
- 2012: We Run This Vol 7 ( with Mr. E of RPS Fam )