{"id":40534,"date":"2007-10-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-10-09T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/ear-drum\/"},"modified":"2007-10-09T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2007-10-09T00:00:00","slug":"ear-drum","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/ear-drum\/","title":{"rendered":"Ear Drum"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cHip-hop\u2019s not dead. It was on vacation\u201d
<\/em>\u2013 Talib on \u201cSay Something.\u201d<\/p>\n

That statement rings true throughout this album as Talib displays an absolute hunger that I haven\u2019t seen from him since Reflection Eternal<\/i>. Talib gives the industry his lyrical warfare in almost every song, and what makes Ear Drum<\/i> remarkable is that the twenty-track album fails to become redundant. Talib manages to find new ways to spit knowledge, and again, for the first time since Reflection Eternal,<\/i> the production on this album actually is on par with his lyrical expertise.<\/p>\n

Ear Drum<\/i> starts off with the best track on this album: the Madlib-produced, Res-assisted \u201cEverything Man\u201d, which is an oasis. The track starts off with beautiful poetry eloquently describing that she may not remember the first time she heard Kweli, but he feels like he\u2019s always been there; a much different message from the \u201cOH MY GOD\u201d fan clips included on previous hip-hop records. Shortly after his beautiful wordplay kicks in and his flow, which sometimes feels forced but in this case is anything but, and sounds are more comfortable and effortless than ever. Talib addresses the fact the he can\u2019t please everyone, while the much slept-on Res kills the chorus, and all of this is spread over a fantastic beat courtesy of Madlib.<\/p>\n

This album contains the same consistency Talib has trademarked on his previous albums, except that he\u2019s playing at a higher level now. Almost every song on here is filled with hunger and it almost feels like Talib has something to prove. While that is not the case, the enthusiastic, energetic Kweli is more than welcomed. This is evident on the growing-up anthem \u201cNY Weather Report\u201d, the Jean Grae duet \u201cSay Something\u201d, and the kid-focused \u201cEat To Live.\u201d The latter is filled with gripping imagery and the reason we need a president who will actually do something for his own people.<\/p>\n

Another interesting track is \u201cThe Perfect Beat,\u201d a collaboration with the infamous KRS-One. The most interesting thing about this track is that Talib absolutely murders the former BDP star. I was very intrigued at how much he actually upstaged the legend and this makes a huge statement to any hip-hop head.<\/p>\n

This album rarely falters, but I find it curious that the two times that it does falter happen to be on the two singles. \u201cListen\u201d contains a great beat from Kwame, but features a less than stellar Kweli. \u201cHot Thing\u201d a will.i.am production is a pretty stereotypical club song that doesn\u2019t fit that well with the rest of the album. <\/p>\n

Ear Drum<\/i> is filled with positive messages that Talib clearly gets across. The music is phenomenal and Talib sounds more mature. This is <\/i><\/b>Talib\u2019s best solo album, and to sum up Ear Drum <\/i>as he so eloquently puts it on \u201cHostile Gospel Pt. 1:\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s why I\u2019m spittin\u2019 freedom, we\u2019ve had enough of trigger squeezing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":29021,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7801],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-40534","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-talib-kweli","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40534"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}