Talib Kweli is probably known for his prolific nature. Instead of waiting on his career to restart or mess around with major labels (as of late), he opted to be independent. Is he moving a whole bunch of units? Not really sure. Does he have mastery over his own career? Absolutely. With that mastery, he took the time to release the Z-Trip assisted Attack The Block mixtape. Influenced by the title and thematics of the same London based based tongue in cheek horror flick, Kweli and Z-Trip make a mixtape that is more mix than tape.

 

Meaning: there is actual mixing of great music on this album.

 

The great thing about this mixtape is that Talib doesn’t try to do anything so experimental that people start questioning his sanity. Not to say that the mixtape isn’t diverse; the mixtape is actually “variety packed”. For example, Kweli is spitting lyrics about government fuckery on “Letter To the Government”. Then, one can hear him flow over club happy tracks on “Make It Classy”. He even takes it back to the borough on “NY Shining”. If anything can be said about Kweli is that he doesn’t want to be pigeon holed.

 

The only thing one could complain about is the inclusion of so many guests. But that won’t make sense because the majority of them don’t come lame. Look at the Killa Mike/Cory Mo assisted “Gettin’ To the Money” or the Black Thought/Ab-Soul assisted “Congregation”. The former has Cory on the hook (mainly) while Talib and Killa spit their brand of reality rap. The latter has all three men going in hard on the track. Both feature guests. All those guests don’t take away from the cohesion of the song. So, even with a plethora of guests, the quality of the music doesn’t suffer.

 

Hell, even Lil Wayne took time to spit a respectable verse free of gibberish on “Celebrate”. Mack Maine goes harder than BOTH of them on the track. Imagine that.

 

With an album coming very soon, Attack The Block has actually set the bar high for Kweli. Prisoner of Consciousness will have to be pretty good to say the least. What this mixtape has done is the same as many dope musical compositions: it has given the listener a taste of the artist’s ability. Now, all he has to do is not squander it. Nevertheless, Attack The Block is the perfect set up for something magical.

One Response