Talib Kweli

Talib Kweli, “Guerilla Monsoon Rap”

I don’t normally list guest artists on the title line, but check it: Black Thought and Pharoahe Monch. Super nice! Kweli is at his best when he’s got other top-tier MCs to work with, part of the alchemy of Black Star.

Conlon Nancarrow, “Study For Player Piano No. 14”

As always, there’s nothing really like Nancarrow, with music that feels about as alien as possible while still seeming like there’s a plan. Even if you can’t actually put your finger on that plan.

Talib Kweli, “The Proud”

Black Star underwent a slow disintegration after their one and only record, one of the best hip-hop records ever. Mos Def pursued a solo career, leaving Talib Kweli and DJ Hi-Tek to make a record together. Then, Kweli broke from Hi-Tek and made his first solo record without any of his Black Star collaborators, Quality. It’s my favorite of his pure solo records, although it doesn’t rise up to Black Star. Kweli has made a lot of records of a relatively consistent level of success, but I really only consider the records he’s done with Hi-Tek to be essential.

Today’s music. Sometimes, while I’m assembling the play list, the next song that pops up is something I desperately want to add. And yet I resist. Why do I do that? The rules on this thing are dumb.

Cretin, “Mister Frye, The Janitor Guy”

I don’t feel like I acknowledge great band names enough when they come up here, so for the record: Cretin is a great band name. Playing something between death metal and grindcore, Cretin are either going to get you banging your head and wrecking stuff at your desk, or are going to seriously try your patience for the next couple minutes.

Just in case anybody is curious, I’ve started using ToVid to upload songs to YouTube. It seems to work with a minimum of hassle, the only drawback being that I sometimes need to convert songs to MP3 before uploading them. For that job, media.io seems to work pretty well. Between the two of them, it means I don’t really need to do very much to get things uploaded. As for today, let’s hope today’s songs are a better bunch than yesterday.