Is it just me or is Talib Kweli falling off?

[On The Edge of Insanity]

I'm not just talking about his beat selection for Beautiful Struggle here, but it just seems to me that flow wise he is starting to get almost unlistenable on some tracks. Take "It's Like That" from the second volume of the Beautiful Mixtape, which basically has him doing a track over the beat of "Dead Wrong" by Biggie. His voice and flow just sound stupid, like he's got completly lost in the track. It was the same on a lot of the tracks on Beautiful Struggle and the first Beautiful Mixtape, at times his voice now just sounds really childish and annoys me a lot. It really pains me to say this, because I am a massive Kweli fan, but whereas I used to fiend for every Kweli verse I could find, I now find myself not bothering half the time because I just end up being disappointed at another nothing verse from him. I think his beat selection is part of the problem these days, because Hi-Tek's Black Star/Reflection Eternal era beats were subtle enough to let him flow comfortably over them, whereas some of the beats he is picking now, you feel as if he has to change his flow/voice to be able to catch onto them, and that is why his flow/voice sound much worse than they did previously. Am I the only one whos been noticing this?

[We Fly High]

i have to agree with you on this one.. hes definitely falling off. or just not as up to his usual standards.

[Conan]

He does seem rather uninspired on the several cuts I've heard from him recently and I know what you mean completely. His verses just don't grab the listener in the way they once did. I mean, ''Beautiful Struggle'' was a relatively poor album IMO when compared to ''Quality'', and the mixtape tracks that he's released recently haven't fared well either. He still drops some nice verses (his appearance on Chops' ''Virtuosity'' album and Phil the Agony's ''Aromatic'', although granted these aren't exactly recent) but I wonder if he's become disillusioned with hip-hop.

[UKnowWhatItIs: welcome to my traps....game over]

I feel the same,I dont know what it is.I think its his flow or sth,for example Saigon's track "Slap Niggas" has a great beat & overall is a great track but Kweli comes really weak on it.His flow was terrible & he was like the only reason this track has a minus.

[Kill]

I basically agree with everybody in here. I haven´t been peeping nothing by him since his last, very disappointing album, as i haven´t been listening to a lot of hiphop at all, but I already noticed back when the advance came out last spring. The observation of Hi-Tek´s mellow and subtle beats being a lot better for him to flow over than the stuff he´s been picking lately is a very good one, too. He sounds kinda forced pretty often...sad, but quite obviously true

[ABN]

Kweli aint really fell off he just delievered a sup-bar album. he can still rip joints and he showed that on that joint with Game & Black Thought and on the joint with Game & Luda. i just think Kweli been tryin to get some commercial acclaim too but Talib will be back spittin heat.

[wcsoldier]

Kweli aint really fell off he just delievered a sup-bar album. he can still rip joints and he showed that on that joint with Game & Black Thought and on the joint with Game & Luda. i just think Kweli been tryin to get some commercial acclaim too but Talib will be back spittin heat.

agree with the commercial thing. I hope Talib will be back with some fire coz I didn't feel his latest album. Same thing for Mos Def with  New Danger (though you can't blame him for trying new things)

[Leggy Hendrix]

it is really disappointing to have to agree with you...

[TraceOneInfinite]

Train of Thought was a classic album.  It had a sound and a mood.  Now he overloads his albums with 15 different producers and the album is painful to listen to.  Sometimes less is more. 

[Sikotic™]

He just tried to put out a more commercialized album and it bit him in the ass, that's all. I think he's a smart guy, he'll correct himself next time.

[Darksider]

He just tried to put out a more commercialized album and it bit him in the ass, that's all. I think he's a smart guy, he'll correct himself next time.