With his first verse, Kweli ostensibly explains the correct pronunciation of his name (Tah-Lib KWA-Lee) and drops lines like, “We make the sky crack, feel the fly track / Get your hands up like a hijack.” The song also features what I believe is the first and only verse by Hi-Tek as part of Reflection Eternal, as he contributes a solid performance. Hi-Tek creates a laid-back and soulful vibe, as the keyboard-based track practically shimmers. “The Blast,” the album’s most successful single, captures the prevalent flavor of the album. His turns of phrases are almost dizzying as he raps, “My shit blow out filaments and light fixtures / With the right mixture of words used as colors to paint the right picture / Graphic masterpieces your whole shit is smashed to pieces / Make you look at your man who rhyme and be like, ‘You not nasty like he is!’” He packs as many words and syllables as possible while still maintaining nearly perfect diction.
“Some Kind of Wonderful,” the first single released for the album, is one of the finest exhibitions of what some have called Kweli’s “baroque” stylings. Kweli has often detailed that he was a product of cyphers in places like Washington Square Park in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village neighborhood, and songs like “Move Somethin’” and “Some Kind of Wonderful” channel the ultra-competitive energy that he delivered in these settings. Kweli starts Train of Thought off with a couple of solid tracks that demonstrate his verbal acuity. Overall, it’s nearly flawless in its execution, and it’s both one of the best albums Rawkus ever released and one of the best hip-hop albums of the ’00s. Furthermore, the continuity in production makes Train of Thought a slightly more cohesive album.
It’s sprawling and ambitious like BOBS, but ultimately more focused. Though it might not be the popular opinion, I prefer Train of Thought to Black on Both Sides. Released a little over a year later, Train of Thought was a comprehensive artistic statement signifying what Kweli and Hi-Tek could bring to the table. Building off of Black Star’s success, Mos Def released Black on Both Sides (1999), another of the genre-defining albums of the late 1990s. Their debut album, released in 1998, is one of the best hip-hop albums of the late 1990s. Reflection Eternal eventually signed to Rawkus and released one of the label’s earliest 12-inch singles, “Fortified Live” b/w “2000 Seasons.” “Fortified Live” featured a verse from Mos Def, and eventually led to the two partnering together to form Black Star, a crew that had all the potential in the world. Afterwards, he continued his partnership with Hi-Tek. Kweli appeared on the track “Transmoreify,” the B-side to their “Hustle on the Side” single. The two eventually met when the Flatbush, Brooklyn-born Kweli visited his roommate in his hometown, and connected with the group Mood, who worked with Hi-Tek as a producer. Both channel their personalities through their techniques, as Kweli raps, “I freak with word power, my man speak with beats.”īoth halves of Reflection Eternal first connected in the mid-1990s through Kweli’s college roommate, who was from Cincinnati, Hi-Tek’s home city. The pair brought out each other’s strengths, with Kweli’s complex styles and matter-of-fact demeanor complementing Hi-Tek’s soulful production perfectly. Talib Kweli Greene and Tony “Hi-Tek” Cottrell’s first album Train of Thought, released 20 years ago, definitely hinted at their potential to be another accomplished duo in the same vein as Gang Starr. I once hoped Reflection Eternal would be an enduring pairing. The emcee and the producer don’t really get to explore their chemistry beyond their initial effort before moving on to other projects. The problem is, for every Freddie Gibbs and Madlib or PRhyme ( Royce Da 5’9” and DJ Premier) far too many other tandems are one-off efforts. The past decade or so has seen the return of great “one emcee, one producer” pairings. Happy 20th Anniversary to Reflection Eternal’s debut album Train of Thought, originally released October 17, 2000.