Talib Kweli
Train Of Thought: Lost Lyrics, Rare Releases + Beautiful B-Sides, Volume One

Listening notes

Talib Kweli's *Train Of Thought: Lost Lyrics, Rare Releases + Beautiful B-Sides, Volume One* arrived in 2015 on Kweli's own Javotti Media imprint, cataloged as JAV005LP. The release belongs to the conscious hip hop genres and collects material positioned, as the title plainly states, as lost lyrics, rare releases, and b-sides — content that had not previously appeared on a standard studio album. The "Volume One" designation in the title indicates the release was conceived as the first installment in a potential series.

The record is a standard two-sided vinyl LP. Side A opens with "Space" at three minutes and forty-nine seconds and moves through "2000 Seasons," "Bright As The Stars," "Wack Niggaz," and "Boomerang," the latter being the shortest track on the side at three minutes and twenty seconds. Side B leads with "Ocean Song" and continues through "7:30," "Fortified Live," "Tryin To Breathe," and closes with "Distractions." The ten tracks run between approximately three minutes and twenty seconds and four minutes and thirty-six seconds in length, with "Fortified Live" representing the longest individual track on the record at four thirty-six.

The release is notable in the context of Kweli's catalog for its label of origin. Javotti Media is Kweli's independent label, and this release carries catalog number JAV005LP, placing it fifth in the label's documented LP sequence as of that catalog designation. Independent label releases of archival and b-side material on vinyl represent a particular kind of artifact in any artist's discography — material preserved and formally issued rather than remaining unreleased or scattered across digital platforms.

This is an unreviewed draft intended for fact-checker review before publication.