After nearly a 3 month push back, Talib Kweli’s highly anticipated Beautiful Struggle has hit shelves. With a line up of hard hitting producers from the soulful Hi Tek to the jumpity beats of The Neptunes, this album has been highly awaited. The Beautiful Struggle opens up with the track: Going Hard, which features a verse from What’s Beef. Some may remember this from the Chappelle Show appearance with fellow MC Mos Def together known as Blackstar. For those who are not familiar with Kweli, he is one half of Blackstar and already has two solo albums under his belt. (Reflection Eternal Produced solely by Dj Hi tek, and Quality with the mainstream single Just To Get By). The Beautiful Struggles Problem is not Kweli, but The fact that what was once “underground” in 1998 is now tetering on the brink of mainstream. This is not to say that Kweli’s flow and raw lyrical talent is out the door, it’s saying that he has a few unneeded artists hitting up his hooks which just make it all to mainstreamesque. For instance, the track I Try features Mary J. Blige. Although the soulful piano loop produced by Kanye West is a refreshing look back to how Kweli used to do it, Mary’s voice seems to sour the taste of it. The Reason this album will have so much criticism is the same reason critics attack rappers like 50-cent, which is no versatility. To many it wont matter but to others it ruins him. In a time where Underground Hip Hop is the “cool thing to listen to”, Kweli’s new album just isn’t as refreshing as one would hope. Another track which tries this is Around My Way, which some may remember from his Beautiful Mixtape. This track is now touched up with a cameo by rising R&B artist John Legend and just comes off as cheesy.
The Beautiful Struggle gets its name from such wake up tracks as We Got The Beat which has the feel of Rush the track on quality. This track amplifies his raw skill and finds him showing off his rapid fire lyrical flow over heavy metal guitars and the “planet rock” style song. “Broken Glass” is another track that gives off the kweli feel, merging his wise rhymes with a beat that is club suitable produced by the big men on campus known as the Neptunes. The Just Blaze produced track “Never Been in Love” follows Kweli as he admits to his girl that he’s done with being a sleep around man. The Title track Beautiful Struggle Produced by Hi tek has the true reflection eternal feel and finds Kweli’s smooth lyrical flow floating over a soulful beat.
In the end, The Beautiful Struggle still lacks the smooth underground track flow that kweli once had. It has its share of Kweli-esque tracks to hold over the Kweli fan, but leaves you wanting a little more. In conclusion the Beautiful Stuggle, still has Kweli struggling to find the peak he was once at, it is worth the 13 dollars it is at now, and maybe the 20 it will be at. But I speak for many when I say what happened to the days when an MC sat down with a single producer for the whole album.
