In The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004), Jon Caramanica called it "thick with fierce street raps ('Down for the Count' and 'Ghetto Afterlife'), maudlin soul ('Love Language'), and the type of insightful versifying Kweli has made his stock-in-trade ('Memories Live' and 'This Means You')". Noah Callahan-Bever of Vibe shared a similar sentiment, writing " Reflection Eternal 's great weakness is Kweli's excessive preaching about the state of hip hop, but at least he cares".
This kind of braggadocio doesn't weaken the effort in the same way his moralizing self-canonization does, if only because he can often back those claims up". Pitchfork critic Sam Eccleston wrote of Kweli's boastful lyrics, "Kweli uses the rhythm as a foundation, building rambling, baroque rhyme structures on top of them, exhibiting his cock-eyed 'skills'. Kathryn Farr of Rolling Stone called Train of Thought "the rare socially aware hip-hop record that can get fists pumping in a rowdy nightclub". PopMatters writer Dave Heaton described Talib Kweli as "a hyper-articulate MC with a revolutionary's mind and a sensitive poet's heart, but he's also a world-class battle MC, able to rip other MCs' rhymes apart in a quick second". This disc proves that Kweli is a deep-thinking, gifted MC, and Hi Tek is an emerging wax master." AllMusic's Matt Conaway compared Reflection Eternal's music to the work of the Native Tongues collective, while writing that the album "houses enough merit to establish Talib as one of this generation's most poetic MCs". Chicago Sun-Times writer Kyla Kyles said, "With a flurry of metaphors and below-the-basement underground beats, this train is on the right track. Train of Thought was well received by music critics.
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The song "Love Language" was part of the soundtrack in the movie Disappearing Acts.Ĭritical reception Professional ratings Review scores Upon its release, Train of Thought achieved moderate sales success and received critical acclaim from music critics. It showcases Kweli's rapping and features themes of revolutionary mentality, love, the state of hip hop, and modern African-American culture. Produced primarily by Hi-Tek, the album is characterized by dynamic, high-tempo tracks and a Soulquarians-type neo soul sound. Kweli had previously worked with rapper Mos Def as the duo Black Star, and Hi-Tek had served as producer on the duo's debut album.
Collaborating as a duo, rapper Talib Kweli and DJ and hip hop producer Hi-Tek recorded the album during 1999 to 2000, following their individual musical work that gained notice in New York's underground scene during the late 1990s. Understanding these two examples together illustrates the power and legacy of “Four Women” and its critique of representational politics and of the rigidity of unique subject positions.Train of Thought is the debut album of American hip hop duo Reflection Eternal, released Octoon Rawkus Records. Mimicking the logic of self-creation that Simone embodied both in her life and in “Four Women,” Kweli and Hi-Tek craft a song where Kweli transitions, often mid-verse, between rapping about each of these four women in the third person and taking on the first-person perspective of each woman. “For Women” reproduces the structure and message of Simone’s original. This strategic decision was underscored when the rapper Talib Kweli and DJ Hi Tek recreated “Four Women” as “For Women” on their 2000 record Reflection Eternal. By examining the similarities between the varying accounts of Waymon’s transformation into Simone, and by conducting a close reading of Simone’s performances of “Four Women,” it is possible to understand Simone’s song as challenging representational politics by pluralizing identities. This performative self-creation is mirrored in the structure and lyrical content of one of her best-known songs, “Four Women,” in which each verse features Simone singing as a different woman. In June 1954, Eunice Kathleen Waymon performed on an Atlantic City stage for the first time under the name Nina Simone.