I Will Be Buying The New Yorker And Not Stealing It From An Office For The First Time Ever, This Week →
Speaking of some gangster-ass shit: Doree, in the New Yorker, writing about Talib Kweli* and Mos Def.
*Talib Kweli was my first big interview. The guy was ridiculously smart, far more articulate than anybody I’ve ever talked to - still, to this day - and terrifying. I ran out of questions on the phone and froze-up.
Young, College Freshman FEK: Uh, um. Uh. Hang on here, I just…
Talib Kweli: You got another question for me? You chokin?
FEK: Yeah, just, uh….uh, sure. Right here.
Talib Kweli: Okay…
FEK: Okay. I know that rap’s the tool, and hip hop’s the culture, but do you see a divide emerging between “rap” as a culture and “hip hop” as a culture? You know, rap being the pop incarnation of—
Talib Kweli: (Sighs) Dude, I haven’t been asked that question in ten years. But I’ll answer it for you. Hip hop and rap are inextricably linked, and the two aren’t that different, everyone knows…
And that’s all I remember. I met him at his sound check for the show, which he let us watch. He was very nice and could tell I was nervous. Kweli and his posse, after the sound check, went to Wal Mart to buy a video camera, and I think Kweli wanted an ICEE. And that’s how I got here.
