Talib Kweli BEAUTIFUL STRUGG(EX)

Talib Kweli, as with the finest artists, is possessed by a love of his medium--in this case, rap and its history. Applying his thoughtful words to music, Kweli revels in hip-hop, and his adoration of the genre is clear in all his work. Each of Kweli's records, whether alone or with Mos Def (as part of Black Star) or Hi-Tek, incorporates hints of melodies past, lines plucked from the performers who preceded him, as well as deeply studied lyrics created by his own fertile mind.So it is with Kweli's third solo outing, THE BEAUTIFUL STRUGGLE, which alludes to the history of many forms of music while the rapper muses eloquently about revolutions and poverty and their relation to war and shattered dreams. Kweli tells an intricate story of struggling, succeeding, and failing on "Broken Glass," and jumps around from one frustration to the next on the ultimately inspirational title track. On the latter, he notes that people dub him a political rapper, when he doesn't even follow politics; rathe