... how perfect that album is to me. But here we go I'm gonna try again I guess lol. Every single aspect of it is a homerun IMO.

Production - flawless. It's diverse and wide-ranging but still coherent and consistent without ever getting repetitive. Hard to pull that off. And each beat fits each song's theme/lyrics *perfectly*. The chemistry between Kweli and Hi-Tek was so palpable. At that moment in time they were so clearly musical kindred spirits.

Lyrics - flawless. Kweli has always been a monster on the mic but he's become more insufferable and preachy as the years have worn on. He was still young, brilliant, conscious but not preachy, insightful and introspective, and had fresh and interesting shit to say on this one front to back. He was dynamic, fit perfectly with all of the production, and covered a lot of ground in terms of subject matter.

Guest appearances - the features were well placed and didn't take away from or distract from the central feel and tone of the album. Xzibit and Rah Digga were both great on "Down for the Count," "Soul Rebels" w/De La is so fun, Kool G Rap brought it on "Ghetto Afterlife," etc.

And while I generally don't care for skits outside of the early classics, Chappelle is always a welcome addition to any piece of art. And it's especially meaningful considering both he and Kweli/Hi-Tek were just starting to break thru at that time so it's a cool time capsule of all these fledgling artists (although Dave was a little further along, I suppose considering Half Baked had come out 2 years prior) in what could be considered their primes.

The whole album is just such an experience. There's so much feeling in the music, in the lyrics. There's so much soul behind it. I still get teary eyed sometimes when "Memories Live" comes on. That beat just hits me for some reason, and Kweli's bars are beautiful. "In my lifetime, ain't too many things better than watchin your first son put his sentences together," "fact that's where I'll take the fam when the Reflection joint is done/by the time you hear this, I'll be baskin' in Africa's sun like wooooooow .... yes, we made it." Mannn I'm getting chills just typing these out lol. It almost feels like a celebration of black art combined with some timeless social commentary that is all just as important now as it was then, and still resonates.

It's a perfect storm of an album considering all the above, and came together at the perfect time for both Kweli and Hi Tek. It's also tied up in a lot of personal nostalgia being that I was still in the infancy stages of my exploration of "underground" hip-hop, so this album (along with all the Rawkus/Soulquarian releases of that time period that dominate my top 25 list above, and that we all talk about so often around here) dropped at the perfect time for me personally. I can vividly recall skipping class to go buy it, then returning to school, sitting in the hallway in my HS by my locker with headphones on, telling my friends as they passed by that they needed to go buy this shit ASAP, etc.

But all that said, the quality of the product is why I rank it #1 .. in other words, I don't think I'm overrating ToT because of personal nostalgia like I may do with some other albums - this one is just that good, objectively.

What an incredible album, released during such a great moment for hip-hop in general.