![]() “I live my life in the sunshine,” he raps on the lush, triumphant opener, “The Magic Hour,” without any sense of triteness “I’m praying for a better tomorrow.” But over the bluster, Kweli still delivers his short sermons. Radio Silence is a mostly a fresh tonic of brightness and positivity. There are, though, some very good Talib Kweli numbers. Instead, these are mostly songs that could have been pulled from any era of his career. Thank You 4 Your Service-contemporary albums from artists that qualify as Kweli’s direct stylistic forefathers. This is not a record distinctly of its era like, say, Common’s Black America Again or A Tribe Called Quest’s We Got It from Here. On Radio Silence, Kweli only circles the topics, occasionally throwing out jabs-“Every problem can’t be solved at the ballot box,” he raps on “All of Us,” in perhaps the album’s most obvious reference to the administration-but stopping short of launching the big, direct haymakers. He’s long been one of rap’s most prominent social activists, using interviews and a super-prolific Twitter feed to advocate for the Black Lives Matter movement, address the escalation of white supremacy, and criticize the current presidency. If the album is in any way shocking, it’s because of the topics that Kweli does not directly engage with. Radio Silence will comfortably shore up the base. Kweli’s flow can feel rushed and sticky, as though he can’t articulate his thoughts as neatly as he can conjure them up. Kweli is still stacking cultural references on top of cultural references: The opening 90 seconds of Radio Silence alone see him citing, among other things, Back to the Future and Carlito’s Way, and rhyming “Sonny Carson” with “Johnnie Cochran.” And he’s still sometimes guilty of being a better thinker than music maker. He’s still bending the knee to the same soul-infused beats that contemporaries like Kanye West and Lupe Fiasco mostly abandoned sometime during George W. Retrieved May 10, 2022.Album number eight, Radio Silence, is another solid Kweli release to add to the pile. "Black Star: No Fear of Time Album Review". "Black Star No Fear of Time Is Almost Worth the Wait". ^ a b "Reviews and Tracks for No Fear of Time"."Black Star Announce Madlib-Produced Reunion Album No Fear Of Time". "Talib Kweli Confirms Black Star And Madlib's Joint Album Is Finished". "Black Star Release 'Fix Up', Announce Aretha Franklin Mixtape". "Black Star Sound Searingly Relevant on Their First Album in Twenty Four Years". "Black Star Show Glimpses of Their Backpack Brilliance on No Fear of Time". On November 12, 2022, the duo performed "So Be It" and "The Main Thing is to Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing" on Saturday Night Live. The day after the album's announcement, the duo released a Black Thought-assisted promotional single entitled "Mineral Mountain", which used Madlib's "The New Normal" instrumental from the Sound Ancestors album. It was also revealed in a press release by Talib Kweli that the album was recorded over a span of four years in hotel rooms and backstage at Dave Chappelle's shows. On April 8, 2022, Black Star officially announced that their highly anticipated second album would be titled No Fear of Time, with a scheduled release of May 3 exclusively on the podcast platform Luminary. Eight years later, it was announced that a second album by Black Star was to be produced entirely by Madlib, and was confirmed to be finished in November. In November 2011, Black Star released two new singles entitled "Fix Up" (produced by Madlib) and "You Already Knew" (produced by Oh No), the latter of which was the lead single for a planned Aretha Franklin tribute mixtape entitled Black Star Aretha. In 2005, hip hop website .uk reported Kweli said that a new Black Star album was "in the pipeline". Since then, the duo went on to have greater success in their respective solo careers while also making occasional film soundtrack/compilation appearances including The Hurricane cut "Little Brother". In 1998, rappers Yasiin Bey (formerly known as Mos Def) and Talib Kweli formed the duo Black Star, releasing their debut album Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star that same year to critical acclaim. Entirely produced by Madlib, the album marks the duo's first full-length release in 24 years, following 1998's Mos Def and Talib Kweli Are Black Star, and was released on May 3, 2022, via podcasting network Luminary. No Fear of Time is the second studio album by American hip hop duo Black Star. ![]()
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