Talib Kweli

Beautiful Struggle

From Beautiful Mix to Just A Struggle (3.5 Stars)

Review Score:

(6/10)
After hearing The Beautiful Struggle advance, it is disappointing, to say the least, to hear the final version of The Beautiful Struggle. A handful of the songs from the original cut are missing, two of which ("From A Place" and KanYe West's "Instrumental") were excellent. (The much hyped "Lonely People" was very innovative but not a very strong track because it didn't flow very well and Kweli's rhymes were recycled so it isn't missed here.) In place of the old tracks are about the same number of new songs with a very different sound that doesn't seem to mesh well with the rest of the album, especially when what it was formerly is taken into account. There is a standout track amongst those in Broken Glass but the rest are just noisy new-school productions without much thought behind them. "I Try," "Black Girl Pain," "Broken Glass," and "Back Up Offa Me" are the best of the bunch but there were some other great songs on here that were simply botched during the editing process. Redubs and new layers of instruments take away from the hooks of the originals and weigh down the album a lot. "Around My Way" would be an excellent example of this--a good track to start with but a new chorus with "ye olde english" soul makes it an almost unbearable experience. Looking back at what this album could have been, one has to wonder why Kweli did it? Was it to break into the mainstream or did he do it just to spite all those who got his album in advance? Whatever the reason, The Beautiful Struggle just confirms the saying that changing one's work for the people, no matter what the circumstances, is never a good idea.

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