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Train of Thought is the first and only album by Reflection Eternal, a hip hop duo composed of rapper Talib Kweli & DJ Hi-Tek. It was released on October 17, 2000 (see 2000 in music) by Rawkus Records. Due to a series of underground hits in the late 1990s, both Kweli and Hi-Tek were hyped in the hip hop music media, and Train of Thought was a critical success, though sales were slim. Kweli's reflections on modern African-American culture, including criticisms of commercialism and violence like "these cats drink champagne/To toast death and pain/Like slaves on the ship talkin' 'bout who got the flyest chains".
A PopMatters review describes Kweli as "a hyper-articulate MC with a revolutionary's mind and a sensitive poet's heart, but he's also a world-class battle MC, able to rip other MCs' rhymes apart in a quick second".blank">http://www.popmatters.com/music/reviews/k/kwelitalib-reflection.shtml _Rolling Stone gave the album 3.5 stars and called it "the rare socially aware hip-hop record that can get fists pumping in a rowdy nightclub"blank">http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/cd/review.asp?aid=14508. With former partner _Mos Def's critical smash Black on Both Sides to be compared to, Reflection Eternal earned some criticism for a perceived shallowness in the social and political content of some of the lyrics, for example the PitchFork review stated: "Kweli uses the rhythm as a foundation, building rambling, baroque rhyme structures on top of them, exhibiting his cock-eyed 'skills'. This kind of braggadocio doesn't weaken the effort in the same way his moralizing self-canonization does, if only because he can often back those claims up as he does when rhyming with the LLC"http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/19162/Talib_Kweli_and_HiTek_Reflection_Eternal.