Happy 20th Anniversary to Reflection Eternal’s debut album Train of Thought, originally released October 17, 2000.
The past decade or so has seen the return of great “one emcee, one producer” pairings. The problem is, for every Freddie Gibbs and Madlib or PRhyme (Royce Da 5’9” and DJ Premier) far too many other tandems are one-off efforts. The emcee and the producer don’t really get to explore their chemistry beyond their initial effort before moving on to other projects.
I once hoped Reflection Eternal would be an enduring pairing. Talib Kweli Greene and Tony “Hi-Tek” Cottrell’s first album Train of Thought, released 20 years ago, definitely hinted at their potential to be another accomplished duo in the same vein as Gang Starr. The pair brought out each other’s strengths, with Kweli’s complex styles and matter-of-fact demeanor complementing Hi-Tek’s soulful production perfectly. Both channel their personalities through their techniques, as Kweli raps, “I freak with word power, my man speak with beats.”
Both halves of Reflection Eternal first connected in the mid-1990s through Kweli’s college roommate, who was from Cincinnati, Hi-Tek’s home city. The two eventually met when the Flatbush, Brooklyn-born Kweli visited his roommate in his hometown, and connected with the group Mood, who worked with Hi-Tek as a producer. Kweli appeared on the track “Transmoreify,” the B-side to their “Hustle on the Side” single. Afterwards, he continued his partnership with Hi-Tek.
Reflection Eternal eventually signed to Rawkus and released one of the label’s earliest 12-inch singles, “Fortified Live” b/w “2000 Seasons.” “Fortified Live” featured a verse from Mos Def, and eventually led to the two partnering together to form Black Star, a crew that had all the potential in the world. Their debut album, released in 1998, is one of the best hip-hop albums of the late 1990s. Building off of Black Star’s success, Mos Def released Black on Both Sides (1999), another of the genre-defining albums of the late 1990s. Released a little over a year later, Train of Thought was a comprehensive artistic statement signifying what Kweli and Hi-Tek could bring to the table.
Though it might not be the popular opinion, I prefer Train of Thought to Black on Both Sides. It’s sprawling and ambitious like BOBS, but ultimately more focused. Furthermore, the continuity in production makes Train of Thought a slightly more cohesive album. Overall, it’s nearly flawless in its execution, and it’s both one of the best albums Rawkus ever released and one of the best hip-hop albums of the ’00s.
Kweli starts Train of Thought off with a couple of solid tracks that demonstrate his verbal acuity. Kweli has often detailed that he was a product of cyphers in places like Washington Square Park in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village neighborhood, and songs like “Move Somethin’” and “Some Kind of Wonderful” channel the ultra-competitive energy that he delivered in these settings.
“Some Kind of Wonderful,” the first single released for the album, is one of the finest exhibitions of what some have called Kweli’s “baroque” stylings. He packs as many words and syllables as possible while still maintaining nearly perfect diction. His turns of phrases are almost dizzying as he raps, “My shit blow out filaments and light fixtures / With the right mixture of words used as colors to paint the right picture / Graphic masterpieces your whole shit is smashed to pieces / Make you look at your man who rhyme and be like, ‘You not nasty like he is!’”
“The Blast,” the album’s most successful single, captures the prevalent flavor of the album. Hi-Tek creates a laid-back and soulful vibe, as the keyboard-based track practically shimmers. With his first verse, Kweli ostensibly explains the correct pronunciation of his name (Tah-Lib KWA-Lee) and drops lines like, “We make the sky crack, feel the fly track / Get your hands up like a hijack.” The song also features what I believe is the first and only verse by Hi-Tek as part of Reflection Eternal, as he contributes a solid performance. The call-and-response hook, complete with vocals from longtime hip-hop songstress Vinia Mojica add to the track’s infectiousness. The video version of the song features a closing second verse by Kweli, who recorded it only after Rawkus insisted that they add another verse so that the single would be longer than two minutes.
Train of Thought hits its stride when the pair keep the music at a slower pace, and Kweli is more contemplative with his rhymes. On the lush “Memories Live,” Kweli looks to the past to inform himself of how he should live his life in the present and remain inspired to be better in the future. He explains in depth how his reflections on what’s come before have made him a better parent to his then young son and a better artist as a whole.
“Love Language” is another smooth highlight, featuring Kweli waxing philosophic on the many manifestations of love. It’s a mature and informed exploration of how people communicate with each other through love, and how love can be channeled into relationships or one’s craft.
Talib Kweli steps behind the boards, with an assist from jazz composer/pianist Weldon Irvine, on “African Dream.” With Irvine on the keyboards, as well as live trumpet and percussion, it’s one of the most musically interesting tracks on the album, feeling epic even though Kweli delivers a sole 24-bar verse. While asserting the dominance of his crew, he berates emcees driven by materialism, rapping, “These cats drink champagne and toast to death and pain / Like slaves on a ship talking about who got the flyest chain.”
“This Means You” serves as a Black Star reunion, as Kweli and Mos Def “combine like strands on a double helix” to deliver an upbeat jam to motivate their audience to action. As they trade verses, they consider their place in hip-hop’s shifting landscape and the increased gentrification of New York City. As a whole, the song is not among the strongest Black Star songs ever recorded, but it’s still dope.
Kweli shows he meshes with all types of emcees throughout Train of Thought, bringing in like-minded crew and fellow Spit-Kickers De La Soul on the plucky “Soul Rebels.” He also teams with Flipmode Squad’s Rah Digga and West Coast emcee Xzibit on the confrontational “Down For the Count.” With “Ghetto Afterlife” he collaborates with rap don Kool G Rap to survey the struggles of life on the streets of New York City. Kweli does a good job at chronicling the often-brutal realm of street justice, while G Rap continues to shine with his unique eye for detail, rapping, “Red time, wipe the sweat around your neck time / One shot spill out your red wine, rock shots to deafen your prime / Pieces of hot lead left in your mind / One slug to the left of your spine, forever late to rest on the shrine.”
Reflection Eternal continue to explore death, although from a more philosophical angle, on “Good Mourning.” Touching on themes like the fragility of life and the unpredictability of death, Kweli considers both his own mortality and that of his friends and associates. Hi-Tek’s ghostly track, constructed from haunting keys and vibraphones, leaves a lasting impression.
The jazzy funk of “Touch You” adds some levity to the album. The track begins with an appearance by Dave Chappelle, doing an early impression of Rick James, which is still a work-in-progress at the time and not yet at future Chappelle Show levels. The track itself is bolstered by a live guitar and misty keyboard samples, as Hi-Tek creates the closest the album comes to a party track. With a verse from the slept-on Piakhan and a chorus by Supa Dave West, the track returns Train of Thought to its smoothest sweet spot.
Train of Thought ends with “Four Women,” the most expansive and complex song on the project. Folded into the “Expansion Outro” and inspired by the Nina Simone song of the same name, Kweli delves into deep themes throughout four lengthy verses, each of which portrays the lives of four different women. He tackles everything from institutional racism to sexism to colorism to inherited trauma, all while speaking on the dehumanization, hyper-sexualization, and infantilization of the Black population within the United States. It’s an apt final statement for an album that investigates so many facets of the Black experience in this country.
Train of Thought would be the last Reflection Eternal album for close to a decade, as both Kweli and Hi-Tek each went “solo” in the wake of its release. Hi-Tek released three installments of Hi-Teknology albums, with especially the first achieving considerable critical acclaim. Meanwhile, Kweli has been particularly prolific as an artist, launching his solo career with the single “Get By,” produced by a ready-to-explode Kanye West. Though I personally didn’t love Kweli’s earliest solo releases, his catalogue became stronger as the years have passed, and he has built a remarkably consistent solo career
Sadly, Reflection Eternal’s follow-up album Revolutions Per Minute (2010) couldn’t deliver upon the promise of longevity as a group that seemed so tangible with their debut. Possibly too much time had passed, and both artists were in different places. Train of Thought is still arguably the best album that Kweli and Hi-Tek have been involved with, and it’s not a bad legacy to have. Rather than focusing on what I wanted the duo to be, I’m certainly content with the magic that they succeeded in giving us.
Note: As an Amazon affiliate partner, Albumism may earn commissions from purchases of vinyl records, CDs and digital music featured on our site.
LISTEN: