Review: Talib Kweli (@TalibKweli) Live At Jazz Café !

The show was star­ted with the DJ mix­ing an unusu­al blend of Hip Hop clas­sics mixed with some soul. They were becom­ing impa­tient, wait­ing for any sign of Kweli to enter. Kweli came to the stage start­ing with Poloo­kas from Gut­ter Rain­bows- “You ain’t got a verse bet­ter than my one”.

A short inter­lude fol­lowed, with Talib talk­ing to the audi­ence about his latest album, Pris­on­er of Con­scious. He shouted out some of the pro­du­cers on the album, includ­ing Saadiq Bolden, Oh No and the RZA. By this point every­one had their Wu signs in the air. Talib con­tin­ued the show with a slow paced, song ded­ic­ated to the women of the world- Come Here fea­tur­ing Miguel. The slow pace con­tin­ued, with Talib play­ing Hot Thing from the Ear Drum album.

Ded­ic­ated to all the ‘lonely people’, mix of Talib Kweli rap­pin over a dope sample of Elean­or Rigby, fol­lowed sharply with a trib­ute to J Dilla, ‘Crushiiiiii­in’! A Yassin Bey trib­ute was well received by the audi­ence in recog­ni­tion of Black Star. The pace grew a lot quick­er with Talib spit­tin’ some bars over the course of his pre­vi­ous albums and Upper Ech­el­on. The ladies and gents were asked to ‘Keep On Dan­cing’.

The crowd at the their light­ers in the air in trib­ute to some of the Hip Hop­pas who have left us. Suc­ceed­ing with a rendi­tion of Com­mon, De La Soul and Biz Markie. Talib explained the Jazz Café was the first ven­ue he rocked in Lon­don when his career began. An announce­ment of the upcom­ing Reflec­tions 2 pro­ject got the crowd hyped, we’re all anti­cip­at­ing anoth­er clas­sic pro­ject with Hi Tek.

Bboys and Bgirls were accred­ited to a largely unseen ele­ment of Hip Hop, and Talib spoke of the fake Hiphop­pas, those who aren’t true to the cul­ture. The crowd were in agree­ment with the state­ment of the Emcee, acknow­ledging their own ideas about real Hip Hop.

An accapella con­tin­ued after a short break from music, with Kweli spit­ting very quick lyr­ics for about three minutes. It got the crowd jump­in’. No No No by Dawn Penn kept listen­ers mov­ing until a quick switch in the mix to ‘State of Grace’ a heavy track ded­ic­ated to a com­bin­a­tion of  Hip Hop and the uplift­ment of women and a couple of oth­er tracks from Grav­itas, with that ‘Gravaton Sh**’

The show was fin­ished with an intense per­form­ance of Get Em High, which left the crowd delighted and feel­in’ nice upon the fin­ish.

 www.kweliclub.com

 Reviewed by Shiv­aOne

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Rishma Dhaliwal

Edit­or / PR Con­sult­ant at No Bounds

Rishma Dhali­w­al has extens­ive exper­i­ence study­ing and work­ing in the music and media industry. Hav­ing writ­ten a thes­is on how Hip Hop acts as a social move­ment, she has spent years research­ing and con­nect­ing with artists who use the art form as a tool for bring­ing a voice to the voice­less. Cur­rently work­ing in TV, Rishma brings her PR and media know­ledge to I am Hip Hop and oth­er pro­jects by No Bounds.

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