My brother, I feel that you may have misunderstood Kweli. Naturally, when an artist makes their album, it is going to be marketed (whether poorly or well) and the fans will be able to hear the music, criticize, assail, praise it, give accolades, etc. However, when an artist such as Kweli is in the studio, he makes the music for himself. As he has said earlier, he makes the music from his soul; the fans have nothing to do with it. I agree with Kweli, if artist made their music strictly for the fans, that would impede the growth of the artist. I attend the University of Virginia and I am a literature major and philosophy minor. I am going to be honest, when I write the enormous amount of papers that I am told to write, I write them for myself for I can only speak about what is true in my heart (also adding empirical evidence, facts, quotes, etc). However, once my respective papers leave my hand, it belongs to the professor, faculty, and administrators. Nevertheless, I still write what is true to my heart. We can not conform to the wants and needs of society for it takes away our individualism. Kweli has produced quality albums (some better than others) but I feel there is a bias in the music industry in terms of the fans. Most times (BUT NOT ALL) fans like the first album that an artist release after they have grown. Examples would be Jay-Z, Kweli, Mos Def (maybe), Biggie, and Nas with Nas probably being the prime example (however, I tend to favor Life after Death) and the list goes on. Now, ofcourse this point can be argued; however, from the people that I have spoken with through my conversations about hip hop, that is the consensus. I will mention again, there are exceptions, but just because they are not living in nostalgia does not mean that we should cancel them out of our minds. We must be able to look at the aesthetic creation for what it is my brother, God bless and POWER TO THE PEOPLE!!!