Name	Warship
Landscape	yes
Background	group_or_band
Origin	Long Island, New York, United States
Genre	Post-hardcore, sludge metal
Years active	2008–2009
Label	Vagrant
Associated acts	From Autumn to AshesBiologyTidal Arms
Url	http://www.myspace.com/mywarship
Current members	Francis Mark Tom Tierney Sean Auer

Warship was a post-hardcore band formed in Long Island in 2008. Former From Autumn to Ashes members Francis Mark (vocals, drums) and Rob Lauritsen (guitar, bass) formed the band following the From Autumn to Ashes' announced indefinite hiatus on June 9, 2008. Mark chose the name Warship, which came from an instance in 2007 when he was creating paintings on blank worship candles, and a friend questioned what he was doing. Mark replied with "making worship candles", however, the friend believed Mark was creating candles with actual warships depicted on them. Mark explains, "This led me to thinking about the relationship between the two. How discouraging it is when 'worship' begets 'warships.'"

History

Warship debuted two songs "Toil" and "Wounded Paw" available on their Myspace, shorty after opening the page. The band has finished recording their debut release with producer Andrew Schneider in a New York studio. The album, entitled Supply and Depend, was confirmed for release on Vagrant Records on November 4, 2008. A tracklisting, album art, and information on the album can be viewed on the Vagrant Records website.

On June 26, the band announced its North American tour which would run from August 20 (Orlando, FL) until September 14 (Philadelphia, PA). Warship played with Reggie and the Full Effect with Francis Mark on Vocals, Rob Lauritsen on Guitar, Darren Simoes of The Bled on Bass, and friend Greg March on drums.

On March 10, 2009 lead singer and drummer Francis Mark announced that his collaboration with Rob Lauritsen had come to an end, and stated that Warship was now a trio : "Two weeks before the tour started my collaborative efforts with Rob Lauritson came to a grinding halt and in the short time I reinvented Warship as a trio with Tom Tierney on guitar and Sean Auer on bass." Rob Lauritsen is no longer a studio or touring member of the band.

Francis Mark also announced on that same day that he was working on a European tour :"I'm working on a full tour of Europe that will be announced as soon as all of the details are settled." Indeed this special tour started on May 28, in which the band toured Scotland, England, Netherlands and Germany.

December 30, 2009 Francis Mark put this on the band's official Myspace Blog:

What is happening with Warship?

Hello,

I've gotten a bunch of messages over the last few months with people asking if this is still a band and i apologize for leaving everyone guessing. I didn't know how to respond because when I thought about it I'm not sure if you could call what we did a "band". We did four tours and had four different bass players, three drummers and three guitar players. Rob and I went into the studio and recorded a full length having never played a show and we hoped to fill out the rest of the band after the fact but that never fell into place. We were lucky and grateful to play with so many awesome musicians but it was also stressful and unstable wondering what the cast was going to be as tours approached.

So many things kept working against us. Then some tours came up which Rob could not do and I stubbornly expected him to let all other things in his life fall by the wayside to try to keep Warship on track. Of course this was unreasonable and nearly ended our friendship altogether. With 50% of the creative force of Warship no longer involved I tried to keep it going until summer 09, when I returned from an extremely challenging tour of Europe and my father was in a near fatal motorcycle accident. I spent a lot of time in New York after that with my family and didn't think much about music for a little while.

I'll try to keep this short because I know most are only interested in a yes or no answer as to whether or not Warship is still a band.

A band? No. We will probably never be an active touring band again.

Will we ever make music again? Who knows. I love recording. I would stay in the studio recording new things all year if someone would fund it. Never say never, but don't hold your breath either. Whatever happens, Supply and Depend is something I'm glad we did and proud to have been a part of. At least you'll have that forever.

peace in the new decade,

FM

Band members

Final line-up

Francis Mark – lead vocals, drums (2008–2009)

Tom Tierney – guitar (2009)

Sean Auer – bass (2009)

Former members

Rob Lauritsen – guitar, bass (2008–2009)

Darren Simoes – bass (2008)

Greg March – drums (2008)

Discography

References

External links

Warship interview on Rockmidgets.com

Category:Musical groups from Long Island Category:American post-hardcore musical groups

Name	Talib Kweli
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Talib Kweli Greene
Alias	The Get By Man, Kweli Snitch, The Prince of Brooklyn
Born	October 03, 1974, South Jamaica, Queens, New York City, New York, U.S.
Origin	Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, U.S.
Genre	Alternative hip hop
Occupation	Rapper, Singer
Years active	1995–present
Label	Rawkus RecordsGeffenBlacksmith Records / Warner Bros. Records (2005-Present)
Associated acts	Black Star, Reflection Eternal, Madlib, Mos Def, Kanye West, The Roots, Pharrell
Url	TalibKweli.com

Talib Kweli Greene (born October 3, 1974 ), and his father an administrator at Adelphi University. His younger brother, Jamal Greene, is a professor of Constitutional Law at Columbia Law School, and former clerk to Justice John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court. As a youth, he was drawn to Afrocentric rappers, such as De La Soul and other members of the Native Tongues Posse whom he had met in high school. Talib Kweli was a student at Cheshire Academy, a boarding school in Connecticut. He was also a student at Brooklyn Technical High School, before being academically dismissed. He later studied experimental theater at New York University (NYU).

Early career (1995-2001)

Kweli made his underground debut in 1995, with featured appearances on "Doom", an album by Cincinnati, Ohio group Mood (Main Flow, Donte, Jahson). In Cincinnati, Kweli also met DJ Hi-Tek and the two collaborated on a few well received underground recordings as Reflection Eternal. Shortly afterwards, upon returning to New York, he reconnected with Mos Def and formed Black Star. Kweli brought along Hi-Tek to produce their first and only album, 1998's Mos Def and Talib Kweli Are Black Star. The album, released amidst a late '90s renaissance of conscious, Afrocentric hip hop, was immediately hailed by critics and achieved modest mainstream success. When Kweli and Mos Def parted ways shortly thereafter, Kweli and Hi-Tek continued their Reflection Eternal partnership on the 2000 album Train of Thought, which was likewise met with critical acclaim, but modest sales.

Start of solo career (2002-2003)

Following Train of Thought, Kweli and Hi-Tek split as well, and Kweli used his first truly solo debut to attempt a move toward a more mainstream sound. 2002's Quality accomplished this goal to some extent, featuring production by a host of different producers, including DJ Quik and Kanye West. The album was met with wide spread critical acclaim and received some mainstream attention thanks to the West-produced single "Get By."

In 2001, Kweli with Black Star partner Mos Def contributed to the Red Hot + Indigo compilation album created by the Red Hot Organization in tribute to Duke Ellington, that raised money for various charities devoted to increasing AIDS awareness and fighting the disease. Black Star collaborated with fellow artists John Patton and Ron Carter to record "Money Jungle." In 2002, Kweli contributed to the critically acclaimed Red Hot + Riot, a compilation CD created by the Red Hot Organization in tribute to the music and work of Nigerian musician Fela Kuti. He collaborated with fellow hip-hop artists Dead Prez, Jorge Ben, and Bilal to remake the famous song by Fela Kuti, "Shuffering and Shmiling," for the CD.

Rise in cultural popularity

In 2004, Talib Kweli, along with Bob Moore's Amazing Mongrels, supported the Beastie Boys on their "Challah At Your Boy World Tour", and appeared in a few Dilated Peoples songs, including a live remix later featured on the video game NBA Street Vol. 2.

Along with Common and Questlove, he contributed to Zap Mama's Ancestry in Progress (2004) with "Yelling Away."

Kweli has used television appearances extensively to increase visibility, notably on MTV's Wild 'N Out, and several performances on Chappelle's Show with long-time collaborator Mos Def; these performances were a product of host Chappelle's friendship with Kweli. Chappelle in turn participated in a number of skits on Kweli's albums "Train of Thought" and "Quality"- impersonating several people including Nelson Mandela. Kweli also had a guest spot on Kanye West's widely successful debut album on the track "Get 'Em High". West has produced some of Kweli's songs, including his biggest commercial hit "Get By". West also includes a nod to Kweli on the song "Breathe in, Breathe Out" from his album "The College Dropout". The lyrics read: "Golly more of this bullshit ice rap/ I got to 'pologize to Mos and Kweli", an acknowledgement of Kweli's meaningful message spread while part of Blackstar. Kweli can be seen in a commercial for the NCAA's Big Ten Conference, rapping about the league's basketball teams. He also provided the voice of the protagonist in the graffiti-themed video game , released in 2006.

Talib and fellow rapper artist Mos Def purchased Nkiru, which is Brooklyn's oldest black-owned bookstore, and converted it into the Nkiru Center for Education and Culture.

Kweli's stature continued to grow, particularly fueled by a line from the track "Moment of Clarity" on Jay-Z's 2003 record, The Black Album: "If skills sold, truth be told/I'd probably be, lyrically, Talib Kweli." Kweli responded to this in his track "Ghetto Show" on his 2004 album The Beautiful Struggle by stating "If lyrics sold then truth be told/I'd probably be just as rich and famous as Jay Z."

Middle career (2004-2006)

In 2004, he released his second solo album and final Rawkus release, The Beautiful Struggle, which debuted at no.14 in the billboard top 100. The album featured much more commercial production, and although Kweli's lyrics retained their socio-political content, he affected a somewhat harder persona. The album failed to cross over into the mainstream and suffered a critical backlash.

In 2005, Kweli released a Mixtape-CD off of his newly formed Blacksmith Records. The project was called , a title which is considered likely a response to the criticism of The Beautiful Struggle.

On , Talib Kweli sampled Ben Kweller's "In Other Words" for his own song "Ms. Hill". In part 7 of Kweller's video podcast series "One Minute Pop Song," Kweller said he found Kweli's use of the song "a little fucked up" due to the fact that it was sampled without permission.

Recent career (2007-2010)

On December 31, 2006, Kweli released nine songs he recorded with acclaimed underground producer Madlib for free download in conjunction with the web site for Stones Throw Records, the label to which Madlib is signed. The album was entitled Liberation, of which Talib later was quoted by XXL magazine as stating releasing the album was liberating to him; "The idea that I could put out an album like that: record it in my house, put it out for free and get that type of response." In 2007, the album was made available for purchase.

For his newest release, Kweli formed his own record label, Blacksmith Records, and has recently signed acclaimed rapper Jean Grae and the group Strong Arm Steady. He also signed a new distribution deal with Warner Bros. Records for Blacksmith Records. His latest solo album is called Eardrum and was released on Aug 21, 2007. It debuted at #2 on the Billboard 200. The first single was Listen!!!.

Talib Kweli and DJ Hi-Tek released a second Reflection Eternal album titled Revolutions Per Minute on May 18, 2010.

Talib Kweli has recently stated that he will be releasing a studio album, called Gutter Rainbows in January of 2011. kweli has said himself that this CD is the early beginnings/demos for "Prisoner Of Conscious" an album he still plans on releasing in the future. Not much is known about the album aside from a list of confirmed producers and that it will feature the song "Cold Rain"

Ongoing and Future projects

Kweli confirmed in a recent interview with VIBE magazine that the title of his next album will be Prisoner of Consciousness, a title derived from Talib's constant labeling as a "conscious rapper" and based on Nigerian reggae artist Majek Fashek's album "Prisoner of Conscience."

Talib recorded an album entitled Party Robot with R&B; singer Res and musician Graph Nobel under the group alias Idle Warship. The album was released as a free download on the website for Kweli's label Blacksmith with 2 different cover art options in late 2009. There were videos shot for two of the songs from the album "Bedroom Lights" and "Black Snake Moan".

In February 2009 it was announced that Talib would be featured in the graphic novel-turned-animated series Blokhedz on Missiong.com, voicing the lead part of the character Blak.

Personal life

Talib Kweli married DJ Eque on May 9, 2009 in Bel Air, California.

Talib has a daughter Diani Eshe and a son Amani Fela.

Talib Kweli is a spokesperson and mentor for P'Tones Records a non-profit after school music program that's mission is "to create constructive opportunities for urban youth through no-cost music programs"

Discography

Solo

Quality (2002)

The Beautiful Struggle (2004)

(2005)

Eardrum (2007)

Gutter Rainbows (2011) With Mos Def as Black Star

Mos Def & Talib Kweli are Black Star (1998)

With Hi-Tek as Reflection Eternal

Train of Thought (2000)

Revolutions Per Minute (2010)

With Madlib

Liberation (2007)

References

External links

Interview Talib Kweli by Michael 'The Dood' Edwards for UK Vibe October 2010

Official site

Official blog

Talib Kweli at YouTube

Category:1975 births Category:African American rappers Category:Living people Category:New York University alumni Category:People from Brooklyn Category:Rappers from New York City