Kamaal the Abstract is the third studio album by American hip hop artist Q-Tip, released September 15, 2009, on Battery Records.

Kamaal the Abstract is an eclectic album that features Q-Tip rapping, singing, and exploring his jazz influences.

It eventually leaked onto the internet, while the distribution of promotional copies led several publications to run reviews of the album.

[5] While it contains elements of hip hop, pop, and rock music, the album's improvisational sound is generally rooted in jazz and funk.

[8][9] Its instrumentation is characterized by electric piano, flute playing, deep organs, guitar-fuelled grooves, and improvised solos.

[12] In his book To the Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip Hop Aesthetic (2007), music writer William Jelani Cobb cited Kamaal the Abstract, along with The Roots' Phrenology (2002), Mos Def's Black on Both Sides (1999), Common's Electric Circus (2002), and the work of Jill Scott and Erykah Badu, as a "genre-bending" effort at musical expansion of hip hop.

[3] John Murph of Jazz Times interpreted the song's verse as a metaphor for Q-Tip's struggles for absolute creative freedom without resulting in critical backlash.

[3] Tiny Mix Tapes's Brendan Mahoney interpreted the "profilin' cop" in the song as "another mundane and too-predictable distraction in a world full of them".

[2] Originally scheduled for an October 23, 2001 release date,[16] and later pushed back to April 23, 2002, the album was shelved by Arista, doubting its commercial potential.

And then Lyor Cohen, who runs Atlantic, used to be with Def Jam, used to manage us, and he called me and said, 'Q-Tip, you're crazy if you fuck wit' Clive.

[19]Q-Tip was upset over the album's shelving and felt that although Reid did not know how to market it, his label released OutKast's Speakerboxxx/The Love Below in 2003: "[T]hose are the kinds of sounds that are on Kamaal the Abstract.

[29] Amid Kamaal the Abstract's original planned release, promotional copies had been distributed and several publications ran reviews of the album.

[8] Slant Magazine editor Sal Cinquemani called the album "a genre-defying blend of nü-jazz, '70s soul, rock, and funk".

[35] Despite writing that it does not reach its potential, Karen R. Good of Vibe perceived it as a progression from Amplified and described it as "closer to the rooted, love-sexy album we, the people, expect from the musicologist".

Club wrote that the album "sounds like the sort of disc that gets rappers released from their contracts … it's invigorating to listen to a relaxed and playful Q-Tip follow his muse ever further off the beaten path".

But it is an interesting one, a unique effort by an artist struggling to mesh [jazz and hip hop]", viewing that "each track is a loose framework of unfulfilled promise".