Tony Cottrell, better known as Hi-Tek, is an American rapper and record producer from Cincinnati, Ohio. He is best known for his work with Talib Kweli on their Reflection Eternal album and on Black Star. His father is singer Willie Cottrell of the Willie Cottrell Band whom Hi-Tek featured on his second release Hi-Teknology 2.
Hi-Tek started his rap career with hip hop group Mood and had a regional hit with "Hustle on the Side". That song was made for Mood's album Doom, which featured amongst others Brooklyn MC Talib Kweli. Talib and Hi-Tek clicked immediately, and Hi-Tek went on to produce most of Talib Kweli and Mos Def's Black Star (1998). In 2000, Tek and Kweli (under the name Reflection Eternal) released Train of Thought (2000) on Rawkus Records, with raps by Talib Kweli and beats by Hi-Tek. It enjoyed moderate crossover radio success with the singles "The Blast" and "Move Somethin'". Reflection Eternal released a follow-up album titled Revolutions Per Minute on May 18, 2010.
Hi-Tek is the second studio solo album by rapper, Keak da Sneak and considered to be his best album by fans. It was released on June 16, 2001 for Moe Doe Records and was produced by Ant Banks, Rick Rock, One Drop Scott, Tone Capone, D-Dre and Keak da Sneak. The album was a modest success, peaking at #95 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums, #18 on the Top Independent Albums and #37 on the Top Heatseekers, and selling 6,510 copies in its first week out.
Technotronic was a Belgian techno studio-based music project formed in 1988 by Jo Bogaert, who originally gained notoriety in the early 1980s as part of a cover band and as a solo artist under various New Beat projects, including The Acts of Madmen and Nux Nemo. Together with vocalist Ya Kid K, he produced the hit single, "Pump Up the Jam", which was originally an instrumental. An image for the act was later put together, utilizing Congolese-born fashion model Felly Kilingi as its album/single cover art, and supposed singer in the music video.
The track that became "Pump Up The Jam" began life as "Technotronic" (which in turn became the project's official name), an original instrumental that Bogaert released under the name The Pro 24s. Based on Farley Jackmaster Funk's "The Acid Life," this instrumental initially included vocal samples from Eddie Murphy's "Delirious" live set and was months later replaced by newer music, along with lyrics and vocals from Ya Kid K. prior to the song's international release in September 1989.
-Talib Kweli-
Here I am
Sooooouuuulllll
Step out on the block to face the sun
Creep the people in the village that raised my son
As far as days go this look like an amazing one
I feel more normal in the summer the same as the yankees won
It's like of course, what you expect less
The night about to kick off, foks is out in their best dress
Pimps and whores rising on the horizon
Ballers coppin more diamonds
Watch the ?ferrion? looking towards Zion
What's embedded in the hardest head
It's the epic lie to me and debt to a
Country that gives us no credit
So cats stealin money cash hoes cuz
That's what's expected
What's the bill when the original architect is ?kinetic?
Mummies return, so dummies can learn
Just how much Hollywood got to burn
Of our money that's hard-earned
But that really ain't my concern
As I walk the block
When the sun goes down it starts to get hot
Scorchin
[Chorus X2]
Bridge to Bama
Bring your wife, your brother, your kids, your mama
(bring everybody) (your mammy)
Shits bananas (bananas)
The way we paint pictures in a vivid manner
(picture it)
[Verse 2]
Magnetic like refrigerator poetry
Attract imimators who wanna flow like me
You know it's me, floating free
Through the ghetto were the people supposedly
Ain't trying to show no love openly
Give me your hand (yeah)
Trying to build a bridge so we can stay the course
Hi-Tek lay the track for the train of thought to run across
Come across places were faces got tracks of tears
Cuz the human race been runnin up on they backs for years
Yeah, but they don't break
They keep it movin like when I travel the land
And people other people do it
How other people go through it
I'm bridging the gap like the Black Eyed Peas
I'm lovin givin it back, to see them raise up
I'm living for that
To keep trying means you keep failing
But if you don't keep trying
That means you keep dying
What the hell, we gonna die anyway
Keep your soul live when you're here
Is what I'm trying to say
[Chorus X2]