I thought I'd be able to get through the rest of this series without having to write about Kanye--especially at a time when seemingly every day another domino falls in his public collapse into fascist pawn, & lots of otherwise well-meaning folx are seduced into apologizing for/validating his baldfaced white supremacist talking points, acting like he has some grand plan because "a genius"--but here we are again. It's hard to talk about Quality without talking about Kanye on a musical level, because his 3 contributions are standouts on an album with a very high overall standard of production. Not to mention 1 of them, "Get By," is among the top 100 or so hiphop songs of all time, a transcendent epic of hard-nosed hope over a wailing Nina Simone sample. But it's also hard to talk about Quality without talking about Kanye because it represents a time when my musical world was exploding, my political consciousness was expanding, & it all seemed to be meshing together, with Talib Kweli & Kanye West as 2 key figures. Seeing where they are now reminds me of what Uncle Mu said which I referenced in a previous Kweli writeup: in order to stay on the right side of history, you need to evolve politically, & so many conscious rappers from the '80s-'00s failed to do that. Artists whom we venerated for their sociopolitical sharpness had their blades dulled when the times changed & they failed to change with them. Maybe the lesson is to be cautious about falling into that same trap as I age, stop venerating entertainers, & just appreciate the work without expecting too much of them. Sadly, I find that last part is getting harder & harder.
Setting aside the meta-context for a moment--this is clearly in the top 3 albums Kweli has ever made. Nothing will ever topple Black Star, but Reflection Eternal & Quality are forever squabbling over that #2 spot. Beyond Ye, we get excellent beats by Megahertz, who laces "Rush" with propulsive rock guitars & "Gun Music" with dancehall synths; & a pair of vocal-heavy J. Dilla beats with the moody "Where Do We Go" & "Stand To the Side." Lyrically Kweli is in his bag like never before--the confidence of the punchlines on the ego-trip songs like "Shock Body" collide with his trademark flights of multisyllabic wizardry, his reedy voice straining at the limits of the beat like a free jazz horn player. Ayatollah shows up with the ebullient "Joy," about the births of Kweli's children with Yasiin featured on the chorus, & the militant march of "The Proud," one of the most interesting topical songs on the album, where Kweli describes current events leading up to 9/11/2001 that describe the simmering tension in the U.S. that laid the groundwork for the Bush administration's opportunistic response to the attacks. Back to Kanye, "Guerilla Monsoon Rap" is simply a jawdropping beat, with no fewer than 3 key changes in the intro before it settles into a sinister violin groove for 2 of the greatest lyricists of all time, Black Thought & Pharoahe Monch, to get extra-busy over. Kanye's final offering, "Good To You" mixes his classic chipmunk soul Al Green sample with an aggressive but boppable MPC chop sound. "Put It In the Air" is a classic DJ Quik beat with rubbery bass & pitched agogo bells, but his & Kweli's styles just don't mesh at all. Kweli comes off ridiculous every time he tries to sound pimpish, but for some reason he just keeps trying.
"Put It In the Air" & the similarly-themed misfire "Waitin' For the DJ" are the only real letdowns on this album though. Going into this listen, I thought I remembered Quality being pretty frontloaded. The benefit of age has helped me appreciate the cautious optimism of tracks like "Where Do We Go" & "Stand to the Side," but it's hard for me to hear Res on the former track, knowing what went down between her & Kweli that resulted in her becoming one of the major targets of what seems to be his ongoing social media war on Black women.
I wish I could sit down with the musical heroes of my youth & talk this shit out. I know I'm not the only one for whom the world feels cold & scary right now, & I would love to chop it up with guys like Talib & Kanye, let them hear where I'm coming from. I don't know if I could talk them out of the bullshit they've been on, but it would be comforting to hear them assure me that we're still on the same side in the fights happening now & the ones yet to come. I certainly don't get that feeling from their music anymore--even with the nostalgia goggles.
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