“Save the ghost stories for the kids,” Talib Kweli says at the beginning of the lead single “Wormhole” from his new album Gravitas, by way of dismissing the talk of the Illuminati and secret societies that’s become prevalent among a certain segment of hip-hop fans, before he spends the rest of the song spitting fire about the “Federal Reserve, World Bank and IMF.” It’s one of the best songs on his excellent new record, and instant evidence that Kweli continues to have something positive and interesting to say in a scene where it can be hard to find the quality amongst all the noise.

Kweli, for whom Gravitas is the 6th solo release of a long and storied career (which he measures in “dog years” according to “What’s Real,” another standout track), has been called the embodiment of the “conscious rapper,” and both his new music and his new approach to the business of selling it make it clear that he’s still fully conscious of the new realities in both the world and the music industry.

When Gravitas officially drops on December 15th, it will only be available as a download directly from Kweli’s website kweliclub.com. Kweli told media outlets that this is a way for fans to know that they will be “buying [the album] directly from me, and I will have a direct relationship with you. Who needs this industry when we have each other?”

While Kweli is widely considered iconic at this point and needs no help connecting with fans, it seems likely he was at least a little bit influenced by his recent tour with Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, a pair of hip-hop newbies who have managed to land number one singles and play 10,000 plus seat arenas without the help of a record label. Seeing the commercial success that can be achieved through savvy use of social media and Youtube, combined with good old fashioned touring, Kweli’s decision to sell directly to the fans makes perfect business sense. This is especially true since he’s already established a fan base, and doesn’t need to be introduced to and marketed towards audiences for the first time – interested fans who want to support him can rest assured that they’re paying him directly for his art, with no label or marketing company taking a cut off the top.

What selling direct has changed for Kweli is the amount of work he needs to put in to reach fans outside of those already aware of his past work, which of course includes stellar turns as half of Black Star, his collaborations with Hi-Tek in the early 2000s, and his string of solo albums since. The challenge now is how to reach new listeners, those not already eager to snatch up the follow-up to Prisoner of Conscious, released just six months ago. This has meant not only the massive tour with very pop-culture-friendly Macklemore, but also things as varied as appearances on DirecTV’s Guitar Center Sessions with a full band, collaborating with children’s organizations in Brooklyn on songs for children’s books and making himself more available for interviews and performances than ever before.

As he told Complex magazine in May, “I don’t have marketing dollars behind me, there’s no Bad Boy, MMG, there’s no nothing. No music videos on BET, no videos on MTV, no Hot 97, no nothing. Yet with nothing, just from pure skill, I’m still able to be relevant. I’m still able to feed my kids. I’m a working artist. This is not a game for me.”

In any event, there’s no question that Gravitas (you can stream a full album preview now at  Pandora.com) is another excellent entry in the Talib Kweli canon, which is all the more amazing for being his second album in half a year. Gravitas sports appearances from Rah Digga and Raekown and collaborations with a variety of interesting musicians, producers and guest rappers, resulting in some of Kweli’s most innovative tracks in recent memory. “Demonology” brilliantly interlaces the guitar work of up-and-coming bluesman Gary Clark Jr. with Kweli’s biting verses, and J Dilla brings a perfectly understated beat to “Colors of You”, while Kweli playfully intones that the “world is [his] coloring book” before bouncing into one of the rapid-fire displays of lyrical creativity that proves he’s still one of the best lyricists around.

Time will tell if Kweli is successful in selling his music directly to fans, since to date only very widely-known rock artists like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails have successfully made serious money distributing new records in this way. But judging by how good Kweli’s new album actually is, and considering his existing reputation with serious hip-hop fans, I think that not only will this album sell far and wide, but other prominent hip-hop artists will take note and start trying this as well.