Two weeks worth of newsy, post-holiday items:

• Jazz trumpeter Freddie Hubbard passes away (hiphopdx.com)

• Talib Kweli’s Blacksmith imprint splits with Warner Bros. (allhiphop.com)

• Warner Bros. pulls content from YouTube (cnet.com)

• Internet-ish: 2tall’s Faster mix for Brighton, UK’s Juice 107.2 FM (sendspace.com), Poo-Bah Records’ Follow the Reindeer (myspace.com), Living Legends, Legendary Music Volume 2 (www.legendarymusic.net), DJ Jamad and Wreckineyez’ The Delivery Guys (zshare.net), Rhettmatic’s official Ghostface mix 36 Deadly Darts (myspace.com), Mick Boogie & Terry Urban’s The Best of 2008 (mickboogie.com), Fashawn’s Higher Learning (2dopeboyz.com), INT from La Melodia’s Welcome To Christmas Wonderland (moovmnt.com), DJ Y-Not’s The Domination Mix Vol. 2 (Don’t Holla) (sharebee.com), Bisc1’s The Strange Love Project (busybisc1.com), Strong Arm Steady’s Gang Mentality (yearoftheblacksmith.com), High Water Music compilation (highwaterismusic.com)

Stop ripping off Dilla!

Here is a speculative list of ten 2009 hip-hop albums. All of these titles are scheduled to drop sometime during the next 12 months. I omitted some perennial “coming soon” titles (Madvillainy 2, 9th Wonder’s The Wonder Years, Ghost & Doom’s Swift and Changeable, Big Boi’s Sir Luscious Left Foot and others). Not to say that they’ll never come out, but we’re moving on now.

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Continuing a flood of fall hip-hop tours, here’s the itinerary for David Banner and Talib Kweli’s appearance on Hip Hop Live! (Exclamation point not mine.)

This is the second year of Hip Hop Live, which is sponsored by Flow TV; last year’s installment brought together Rakim, Ghostface Killah and Brother Ali. Rhythm Roots Allstars (who appeared on Ghost’s The Big Doe Rehab) will reprise its role as backing band for all the artists.

Little Brother will open during the first half of the tour, which runs until October 13. Somewhat overrated Atlanta rapper B.O.B. will appear during the tour’s second half until October 25.

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New clip for Talib Kweli’s track with KRS-One from last year’s Eardrum.

Two and a half years after The Beautiful Struggle, nearly a year after it was first scheduled for release, three months after it leaked onto the Internet, and around a month from its most recent July 24 date, Talib Kweli’s third solo album Eardrum will finally hit the streets via Warner Bros this month. Kicking off with a benediction from the great poet Sonia Sanchez, it finds Kweli collaborating with Jean Grae, Kanye West, UGK, Norah Jones, Roy Ayers, Lyfe Jennings, Musiq Soulchild and Justin Timberlake. As I’ve written before, it may be Kweli’s last chance at establishing a mainstream rap career.

Stakes are mad high, and Kweli deserves credit for putting in extra work. This month, in addition to reuniting with his Black Star partner Mos Def on the Rock the Bells tour, he’ll fulfill a number of spot dates around the country. The concerts will most likely be an appetizer to a full-fledged run later this year.

Pick up Eardrum on August 21, and check out the tour dates below.

• 8/01: Neighborhood Theater, Charlotte, NC
• 8/02: Hi-Fi Buys Amphitheatre, Atlanta, GA
• 8/03: State Theatre, St. Petersburg, FL
• 8/04: Bayfront Park Amphitheatre, Miami, FL
• 8/06: House Of Blues, New Orleans, LA
• 8/07: Smirnoff Music Center, Dallas, TX
• 8/08: Emo’s, Austin, TX
• 8/10: The Brickhouse, Tempe, AZ
• 8/11: Glen Helen Hyundai Pavilion, Devore, CA
• 8/12: Coors Amphitheatre, San Diego, CA
• 8/13: The Catalyst, Santa Cruz, CA
• 8/15: Showbox, Seattle, WA
• 8/16: Crystal Ballroom, Portland, OR
• 8/17: Domino Room, Bend, OR
• 8/18: McCovey Cove, San Francisco, CA
• 8/19: Sleep Train Ampitheatre, Sacramento, CA
• 8/21: USANA Amphitheater, West Valley City, UT
• 8/22: Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Morrison, CO
• 8/23: Granada Theatre, Lawrence, KS
• 8/25: Metrodome, Minneapolis, MN
• 8/27: Barrymore Theater, Madison, WS
• 8/28: House Of Blues, Cleveland, OH
• 8/29: DTE Energy Music Theatre, Clarkston, MI

8/02-8/04, 8/11, 8/18-8/22, 8/25, 8/29: Rock the Bells

www.talibkweli.com
www.myspace.com/talibkweli

After nearly a year in delays, Talib Kweli finally has a release date for his third solo album.

Ear Drum is set for release on July 24 via his Warner Bros.-distributed imprint, Blacksmith Music. It features production from Kanye West, will.i.am, Madlib and former Reflection Eternal partner DJ Hi-Tek. The album title, says Kweli in a press release, represents “the image of the ear and of the drum, which are powerful enough by themselves, but put them together and it’s an instrument in your body that helps you hear. They’re also two very simple, yet powerful words. I wanted to focus on finding a sound that makes you move, and that’s where the word ‘eardrum’ popped in my head.”

A lot is riding on Ear Drum for Brooklyn’s finest. Ten years removed from his “Fortified Live” debut with Reflection Eternal (yes, it’s been that long), many people in the music industry have written Kweli off, asserting that his time has passed and he’ll never break through to a wider audience. That may be the reason why a solid single released last year, “Listen,” failed to connect. It was a strong single, but too predictable.

In Kweli’s defense, however, his approach to lyrical content may prevent him, like the Roots, dead prez, Common and many others, from ever going pop. With Ear Drum, he’ll have to convince skeptics that it’s okay to make great albums without commercial pretenses. And since even Jay-Z isn’t selling two-million plus nowadays, the bar is much lower; a critically-acclaimed album that sells in the hundreds of thousands, like Lupe Fiasco’s Food & Liquor, may be enough to convince Warner’s higher-ups that he’s maximizing his potential.

The new lead single for Ear Drum is “Hot Thing.” Other tracks include “Soon the New Day” (with Norah Jones) and “Say Something” (with Jean Grae).”We need to challenge our audience,” says Kweli in the press release, “but we also need to challenge ourselves to know that whatever our new experiences are, we can write about them, be creative, and bring that to an audience without them feeling alienated.”

Wish him luck. In the meantime, check out the “Listen” video again. I’m telling you, shit ain’t bad.

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www.talibkweli.com
www.myspace.com/talibkweli

Talib Kweli photo by D-Nice.

On New Year’s Eve, fan favorite Stones Throw closed an amazing 2006 by posting a free album in tandem with Talib Kweli’s Blacksmith Music Label.

The album, a collaboration between Kweli and mystery achiever Madlib, is called Liberation. Kweli has talked up the nine-track EP-length set on his MySpace page for months. As recently as December 5, he wrote, “So I know I know, I said Liberation will be out in November. I like to be a man of my word and believe me, I really tried! There are just politics with putting out a free album that I wasn’t ready for. Everyone has to be on the same page, and I got a lot of business on my plate right now.” But all’s well that ends well.

Liberation, which can be downloaded for free here (with additional artwork) and here is, in Kweli’s words, “a straight ahead, sample driven hiphop record, from two of the best doing it.” It marks his second underground release following the Blacksmith: The Movement mixtape in November. His new album, Eardrum, was scheduled for release last fall; it is now tentatively set for February. Meanwhile Madlib is working on a new Madvillain collabo with MF Doom.