Vibrate Higher by Talib Kweli

Author:Talib Kweli
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

19

Reflections of Our Ancestors

If you can talk, you can sing; if you can walk, you can dance.

—ZIMBABWEAN PROVERB

I have worked with the best producers in hip-hop, but Hi-Tek remains my absolute favorite producer to work with. His production style is a huge part of my musical DNA. He was the first producer to wrap beats around the never-ending river of rhymes that poured out of my head in a way that made them make musical sense. An astute observer, Hi-Tek never did much talking, but his music spoke volumes. Without his production my rhymes probably would’ve never had the right vehicle to properly drive my points home.

During the initial recording and promotion of the Reflection Eternal album, I always showed a lot of love to Hi-Tek in my songs, onstage, and in interviews, but not until much later in my career did I truly understand his importance in my life. Both of us are stubborn visionaries in songwriting, and while we both love the same type of hip-hop, we spent a lot of time arguing over how to create it. My approach to hip-hop was that of a curious outsider whose ambition to compete with the greats placed me in a circle of the best doing it. As the son of professors, I didn’t grow up break-dancing or writing my name in graffiti on a wall, I grew up appreciating hip-hop for its connection to the poetry of the Black Liberation Movement. It took me years to get out of my head and allow the music to flow thru me naturally. Hi-Tek was first and foremost a B-boy who grew up dancing. He was raised around hustlers, and his father was a soul singer who fronted his own band, the Willie Cottrell Band. Our different approaches to creating music were reflected in our different upbringings. While I had a lofty and academic approach to creating songs, Hi-Tek was more guttural, focusing solely on the vibe.

If the vibe wasn’t right, Hi-Tek wouldn’t create. Many times he would begin working on a beat that I would love, then he’d scrap it and tell me he wasn’t feeling it while I was writing to it. Other times he would tell me to be less wordy or intricate. Back then I dismissed this criticism as Hi-Tek’s not understanding the point of my rhymes. I now know that whether he understood the point of a rhyme was irrelevant; he was solely focused on how it hit the ear. Working on the Reflection Eternal album in such proximity for two years almost made us dislike each other. Neither of us would bend, which meant that the only ideas that made it out of the lab were the very best ones. I often compare making that album to Superman’s crushing pieces of coal in his hands to make diamonds. Our creative friction helped create a great body of work.

My primary goal on Train of Thought was complete lyrical domination. I wasn’t focused on what the fans wanted, I wasn’t focused on hit singles.

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