Jazz Cafe, London

If there are to be winners and losers in what has become hip-hop's year of living introspectively, it would be difficult to think of a more deserving beneficiary than Talib Kweli. The 32-year-old Brooklyn rapper has spent a decade carving out a reputation as a peerless wordsmith, and while his on-record repertoire looks somewhat scant - Eardrum, only his third bona fide solo album, is due out in September - this three-night London residency feels like a coronation.

Kweli prizes clarity over volume, his intricate, complex lyrics neither distorted nor submerged by the backing tracks. He still manages to generate arms-aloft euphoria, both with old hits like Definition, from his 1997 album with Mos Def, and relative rarities such as Lonely People, never released because its Eleanor Rigby sample clearance was denied ("Take that Sir McCartney!" he cackles at its close). He improvises a verse about Tony Blair's resignation and the iniquities of the smoking ban, topping it off with a rhymed invitation to his after-show party. Lines from unreleased material - such as one where he wishes for "more Beyoncés, less Britneys"- get mid-song cheers.

What happens next will be critical. Eardrum's mix of dense, clever poetry and radio-friendly backing tracks is designed to convert mainstream audiences. Yet we have moved on from these battles: Kweli may be trying to achieve something no longer possible. As his cohort Jean Grae raps on the Eardrum song Say Something, "Hip-hop's not dead, it was on vacation." Hip-hop's days as pop's biggest genre appear over, at least for now: but a new golden era of innovation and creativity may yet be at hand. Talib Kweli is one of the architects of this revolution - hopefully he will not get left behind as the landscape he has helped change continues to shift.