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Album Details

• Artist: Talib Kweli
• Album: The Beautiful Struggle
• Label: Rawkus
• Year of Release: 2004
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: dscanland on 2005-05-03

It seems like Talib's "Quality" went down a little with the release of The Beautiful Struggle. Oh, don't get me wrong, this is still a solid album, 100x as good as most of the top 40 shit today. I do wonder why Talib hasn't made it yet. That could be the reason behind the album title. This album is fairly accessible even though it's not really pushing Kweli into any new territory. But it really isn't like Kweli is missing the mark on all the tracks. One listen to "I Try" feat. Mary J. Blige and you can see that Talib is still a hot commodity. He utilizes a fairly recognizable sample from the Police ("Every Little Thing She Does is Magic") to create the framework for "Around My Way" Feat. John Legend. This is a decent song but it tends to get a little boring around the 3 minute mark. But then there is the less than stellar songs like "Work It Out" that is based around a very simple Casio sound that just doesn't do anything for me. I found the problem with The Beautiful Struggle is that it doesn't really stand out the way that Quality did. Hopefully this gets Kweli a little more exposure because I have no doubt that many fans are a little disappointed.

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