Seeker of Truth

I appreciate your light, your essence; in your eyes I see freedom, justice, and most of all homage to 3,000,000 black folks dead in the Atlantic Ocean. 

by Teddy Fikre  written:  Thursday, February 8th, 2012

Talib Kweli.  Let me say that again.  Talib Kweli.  His first name Talib means “student” or “seeker” in Arabic and his last name in Swahili means “truth” or “true”.  So let me say that again, a seeker of Truth.  That is what my man Talib Kweli is, a student of true—a true revolutionary on a jihad of self awareness who is educating along the way the masses who live in dark lit corners.  He is a prophet who is in essence profiting me and my people, one nod heading beat and bar at a time. 

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Kweli grew up in a highly educated household in Park Slope. His mother, Brenda Greene, is an English professor at Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York and his father an administrator at Adelphi University. His younger brother, Jamal Greene, is a professor of Constitutional Law at Columbia Law School, and former clerk to Justice John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court. As a youth, he was drawn to Afrocentric rappers, such as De La Soul and other members of the Native Tongues Posse whom he had met in high school. Talib Kweli was a student at Cheshire Academy, a boarding school in Connecticut. He was also a student at Brooklyn Technical High School, before being academically dismissed. He later studied experimental theater at New York University.

I am astounded always when I hear rappers spit beats, when they lace into a mic and drop knowledge.  I am in love with rap music, it is an art that is devolving into bullshit and has me singing the blues.  Niggas like Souljaboy are literally selling us back into slavery, these motherfucking trolls are all anti-Obama, they anti-Revolutionary, anti-black thought, anti-social asshole trolls are reverting my people back onto slave ships.  They are literally walking us backwards from the Lincoln Monument and enslaving us to eternal bondage.  It is as though these modern day Judases are literally taking us on an exodus back to Africa and searing in our collectives synapses that we are in fact the dark lot of Cain.

But then come along DOPE writers and thinkers, black thoughts and black ink of justice writing over all the black odium of Souljaboys and their ilk and penning a different story for my children.  Talib is Obama, a revolutionary, a black thinker, a social prophet who is taking us back to Africa to reclaim our true heritage.  Long is the travels and travails of a lone traveler, in a land of a million asshole trolls, Talib is a student of truth who seeks the untraveled road.  He could have decided to take the easy way out, to sell out his soul, and to sell out his people like Soulja boy does and did.  Instead Talib bypassed the easy profits and sought instead to be a prophet for his people.  This is why I love Talib, not in the Atlanta boo boo way, I mean an abiding love for his spirit and his truth.  Authenticity in the rap game is a diminishing return, once rappers decide to chase the money instead of earning their keep; they end up lost in Atlantis. 

In 2005, Kweli released a Mixtape-CD off of his newly formed Blacksmith Records. The project was called Right about Now: the Official Sucka Free Mix CD, a title which is considered likely a response to the criticism of The Beautiful Struggle.  The musical offering was generally considered to be a mixtape. However, some people regard “Right About Now” as an official album because of its availability through commercial sites and its release of two singles. “Right About Now” also lacks the DJ overlays often accompanied by mixtapes which makes the CD read more like an official album. The album sold 16,000 copies in its first week of release, debuting at #113 on the Billboard 200.  Sparking some controversy, on Right About Now Kweli sampled Ben Kweller’s “In Other Words” for his own song “Ms. Hill”. In part 7 of Kweller’s video podcast series “One Minute Pop Song,” Kweller said he found Kweli’s use of the song “a little fucked up” due to the fact that it was sampled without permission.

Talib Kweli married Dj Eque on May 9, 2009 in Bel Air, California. Kweli has a son, Amani Fela Greene and a daughter, Diani Eshe Greene with Darcel Turner, author of published novels Dana Dances on Paper and Lathered Layers.  Kweli used to be a Five-Percenter (member of The Nation of Gods and Earths), which had an influence on him earlier in his life and continues to do so. However, he no longer subscribes to any particular religion.

Thank you Talib for being a stand up fella, for being a student of truth and a seeker of justice.  Thank you for being un-Souljaboy and being a soldier man first and foremost.  In a land full of jackass trolls you stand above them all.  I appreciate your light, your essence; in your eyes I see freedom, justice, and most of all homage to 3,000,000 black folks dead in the Atlantic ocean.  RIP black soldiers, live in peace black warriors, and leave in peaces too would be betrayers of real Hip Hop.  I am trying my best to be a seeker of truth, I wonder if Talib Kweli will now seek out my truth…

“Discrimination is a hellhound that gnaws at Negroes in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them.” ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

[click to see Talib Kweli and follow him on twitter @talibkweli]

[click pic to see Talk of DC and follow them on twitter at @nateenzo @talkofDC @yodiddy]

Teddy Fikre