SAY the word "conscious" when talking about Brooklyn, N.Y., hip-hop artist and poet Talib Kweli's work and he will probably accept the compliment but roll his eyes.
"I stay away from the titles of 'conscious' just like a gangster rapper should stay away from the title 'gangster,' " Kweli said in an interview with National Public Radio's Farai Chideya.
Kweli even plans to call his next album "Prisoner of Conscious," with a potential November release.
"My job, in terms of selling my music, is to be universal," Kweli told Chideya.
Kweli said he always wanted to write music that would entertain and gain him popularity.
"Hip-hop became a way for me to write and be cool; it gave me a language to speak to my peers," Kweli said of his life as a young artist, but these days the ultimate goal for his progressive-style of hip-hop is to educate and entertain simultaneously.
It seems to work for him.
Though his fan base is not as widespread as Jay-Z or 50 Cent, both artists have named Kweli when talking about their favorite rappers.
Kweli rose to popularity in the late '90s with the mindfully political duo Black Star, a collaboration with good friend and fellow MC Mos Def, who now goes by Yasiin Bey after playing one of his last shows as Mos Def at the Moose's Tooth anniversary party in August.
In the past few months, Black Star has resurfaced, playing two sold-out shows in Chicago among others. Some long-time Alaska fans might wonder why the two aren't coming north together.
"That is a question for the promoters," Kweli said in an email interview.
Both artists are represented separately, and Kweli was booked after Mos Def's visit to Alaska.
Promoters said it wasn't logistically or financially feasible to book them together.
"Believe me, I wanted a Black Star show," said Heather Prunty of Synapse Productions, who booked both the Mos Def show and Kweli's upcoming full-band performance at Bear Tooth. "However, I loved what Mos brought solo. And it was pretty special that it was his last show as Mos Def."
Black Star also appeared on TV's "Colbert Report" earlier this month with a new song, "Fix Up," once again rhyming about hip-hop, culture and politics with a light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel hook.
"Fix up, look sharp/Black Star, good God/And when the sky look dark/Shine a light, look ahead, look up."
Beyond lyrics, there are other signs that Kweli is not your typical commercial rapper.
He and Bey co-own Nkiru Center for Education and Culture, a nonprofit literacy and cultural awareness center, which they grew from Brooklyn's oldest black-owned bookstore.
Kweli has likely been influenced by the household he grew up in.
His mother is the executive director of the Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College, his father is an associate provost at Adelphi University and his younger brother is a professor of constitutional law at Columbia Law School.
"My family is who I am," Kweli emailed. "I am nothing without them. My music reflects that."
Though he's educated, community-minded and often deals with political issues in his music, Kweli doesn't often vote. Instead, he uses his music and Internet platforms like YouTube and Twitter to delve into social and cultural situations and, as he hopes, impact people's lives.
"I voted for Obama. The brother deserved my support. But I supported the man not the process. It's very hard to see the human being inside the politician. When I see that, I can support it," he emailed.
Kweli was also one of many artists and musicians who visited Occupy Wall Street this month.
"I could not be in this city and not go see it for myself. It is the most American thing I have ever seen," Kweli wrote. "God bless those people for standing up for us."
At New York's Zuccotti Park, he shared a new rhyme titled "Distraction" and offered words of encouragement to protesters.
"The captains of industry and the leaders of status quo/Have a deep-seeded fear of change/For them it's strange -- they wanna go/Back to the '50s, they asking for a return/But them days is much blacker, for lack of a better term," he rhymed.
Kweli told MTV he isn't one for aligning with social or political causes because people often have agendas, but he does like to align himself with what makes sense to him.
"Shame on me if I know something and don't spread it, you know?" he said.
"If I know it, it becomes my responsibility to spread the information."
He may not like the label, but with a name that means "seeker of truth" in Arabic and lyrics that respond to social, cultural and political circumstances, it's hard not to point out that Kweli is a rapper with a conscience.
By Rosey Robards
Daily News correspondent