Hop on the Train of Thought

This album is special. It is insightful, intelligent, real, and at the same time has a great music vibe. Talib Kweli's lyrics are perfect over DJ Hi-Teks bears. This album has great music that can change your mood at times. The album is complete with about 21 tracks with a few skits and continuations of a song with only a melody like on the song "Love Speakeasy" which is a saxophone continuing till the end of the song "Love Language".

This album changed my perspective on hip hop. Most of hip hop nowadays is about who can flash the most money, have all the nice cars, jewelry, and drug dealing. All those things are entertaining I am sure but it was more entertaining when only a few talked about that like Ghostface Killah or Reakwon on Only Built for Cuban Linx... but nowadays every rapper talks about the same thing only over a different beat and its getting played out. I think it takes more than talking tough or about drug dealing or about being rich to be a rapper. After listening to this album it changed my perspective and I began to judge and critise other albums using Reflection Eternal as the base.

This album has great wordplay and the beats are always on point. There are tracks that could make you dance like track #2 "Move Something" and there are tracks that make you just think such as Track #7 "Memories Live" which is definitely one of my favorite songs on the album. With lyrics that make you feel where Talib is coming from.
" Life, living in Flatbush and going to house parties
 Red lights, bumping, life is what you make it, then sorry
 In my lifetime, isn’t done too many things better
than watching your first son put his sentences together
Yo, it kinda make me think of way back when
I was the portrait of the artist as a young man
All them teenage dreams of rapping
Writing rhymes on napkins
Was really visualization Making this actually happen
It's like something come through me
That truly just consume me
Speaking through the voices of the spirits speaking to me
I think back in the day, I absorbed everything like a sponge
Took a plunge into my past to share with my son"

This song has great lyrics and the mellow beat sounds just right for the mood the song is trying to get across or songs like Track #21 " Four Women" which is about a distinct subject of being a black women in America through the early slave days to more recent problems such as acceptance and also about pregnancy.

 I know a girl with a name as beautiful as the rain
Her face is the same but she suffers an unusual pain
Seems she only deals with losers who be using' them games
Chasin' the real brothers away like she confused in the brain
She tried to get it where she fit in on that American Dream
mission paid tuition For the receipt to find out her history was missing and started flippin Seeing the world through very different eyes People askin' her what she'll do when it comes time
to choose sides Yo, her skin is yellow,
it's like her face is blond word is bond
And her hair is long and straight just like sleeping beauty
See, she truly feels like she belong in 2 worlds And that she can't relate to other girls"

This is an all around great album and lacks in nothing. One of the best albums of all time and definitely one of the best Hip Hop albums of all time. I also like the guess appearances. The album has many different styles and personalities on it from rapper Kool G Rap, Rah Digga, Xzibit, Mos Def , De La Soul and even Dave Chappelle.


 ***** -Played every time I listen to the album.Great song
**** -Gets played heavily when listening to album. Good song ***-Played once in a while but not too much. Ok Song
**-Played only upon request. Rather not listen to this song
*-Never played. Always gets skipped. Horrible song

1. Expansion Dedication (intro)
2. Move Somethin'-****
3. Some Kind of Wonderful-****
4. The Blast- *****
5. This Means You-*****
6. Too Late-*****
7. Memories Live-*****
8. Africa Dream-***
9. Down for the Count-*****
10. Name of the Game-****
11. Ghetto Afterlife-*****
12. On My way-(skit)
13. Love Language-*****
14. Love Speakeasy-(instrumental)
15. Soul Rebels-****
16. Eternalist-***
17. Big Nel from the Natti-***
18. Touch You-***
19. Good Mourning-*****
20. For Women-*****