Also this issue: Once More, With Feeling After an 18-year break, Mission of Burma's Clint Conley returns with a brand-new band. -Sam Adams Local Land-Marc One of the greatest living piano virtuosos calls Philly home. -Lou Camp Beat Box Hip-Hop & You Don't Stop -Ainè Ardron-Doley The Gig -Nate Chinen They Survived Philly -Patrick Rapa

May 9-15, 2002

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Talib Kweli

He may not be as drop-dead charming as his former Black Star partner Mos Def (whose mug has appeared in Monster's Ball and Carmen: The Hip-Hopera and will grace the upcoming Brown Sugar), but Talib Kweli is every bit the renaissance man. As Reflection Eternal, Kweli and wax-man DJ Hi-Tek crafted one of hip-hop's true cranial hard hitters in 2001, Train of Thought (Rawkus). Twenty tracks of enlightenment, Train was the genre's consciousness in a year defined by Eminem's lyrically brilliant social dysfunction. "If you can talk you can sing/ If you can walk you can dance," intones Kweli on "Africa Dream," and it's a nice encapsulation of his worldview. He doesn't just talk the talk. Kweli was part owner of, and remains involved with, Brooklyn's oldest black book store, Nkiru Books, which he and Def helped turn into the The Nkiru Center for Education & Culture (www.nkirucenter.org). For Kweli, it's always as much about getting one's read on, as getting one's freak on.

Mon., May 13, 9 p.m., $18-$20, the TLA, 334 South St., 215-336-2000, www.electricfactory.com

–Brian Howard