“It’s my blood, sweat, tears, years, struggle, love, hate, fear,” Talib Kweli counts off in “My Weather Report,” the second track on his new album, “Eardrum.” He might as well be cataloging the familiar toil and trouble that all rappers claim to put into their music and rhymes these days. It’s only in the very next line that Mr. Kweli, the underground Brooklyn MC with the matchless reputation, separates himself from the crowd with a streak of athletic wordplay that mixes metaphors as seamlessly as it cartwheels around the beat. “I can’t prepare for the rain, hail, sleet, snow, whatever the weather be like let the people go to the place where knowledge is born — we’re walking into the third eye of the storm.”

Ladies and gentlemen, meet the new and improved Talib Kweli. Don’t worry — he hasn’t changed anything about the music, idiosyncratic delivery, or subject matter that earned him his esteemed status. From the carefree ride “Country Cousins” to the pugilistic verbal and bass punches on “Say Something,” from the easygoing 1970s cocktail hour vibe of “In the Mood” to the 4 a.m. afterparty mood of “Soon the New Day,” and from the classic Bronx boom-bap of “The Perfect Beat” to the choir powered “Hostile Gospel,” Mr. Kweli’s third proper album is a familiarly soulful, vibrant, and intelligent jolt of hip-hop that has nothing in common with the thuggish, misogynistic, and drug-life glorifying music that powers commercial rap.

What’s different is so subtle that the casual fan might not even notice — but it’s a world of difference. Mr. Kweli once again sounds like he’s having a blast making music instead of shouldering the fate of hip-hop with every rhyme. “Eardrum” is a lithe, smart, and refreshing performance from a highly skilled rapper at ease with letting himself be lithe, smart, and refreshing.

It’s not easy being many rappers’ favorite rapper. When Mr. Kweli, Mos Def, and DJ Hi-Tek released back-to-hip-hop basics “Black Star” in 1998, all three were immediately entrusted with resurrecting the so-called Golden Age of early 1990s hip-hop to challenge the mainstream gangsta attitude that was then — and, to some extent, still is — the public face of the music. In the decade since, Hi-Tek and Mos Def have diversified their careers (the former producing acts as varied as Blacklicious and Soulive, the latter with his acting ambition), but Mr. Kweli has remained the literate, conscientious MC. Even Jay-Z tipped his hat on 2003’s “The Black Album” in “Moment of Clarity” with one of the more quoted rap lyrics in recent years: “If skills sold, truth be told, I’d probably be, lyrically, Talib Kweli.”

Mr. Kweli didn’t let the praise go to his head, but he did seem compelled to act as hip-hop’s moral compass, growing more serious with every album. “Got searched on the plane, Arabic first name / Disturbed by the fame just like Kurt Cobain,” he riffed on “I Try,” from 2003’s “The Beautiful Struggle.” “Nothin’ hurt like the pain and torture / Daughters of the dust lookin’ for a vein.” Though his heart and his mouth were in the right place, Mr. Kweli sounded flat and uninspired, as if his passionate spark had been dampened by the pressure to speak truth to power. But everything changed earlier this year with an underground collaborative album called “Liberation,” performed with the West Coast producer Madlib. “Time to free yourself, free your soul, free your mind,” Mr. Kweli rhymed over a warm, late-night wash of organs and horns on the lead track, “The Show,” sounding more calmly chill than a polar bear. He hadn’t sounded this loose in years, and for the album’s remainder, he never abandoned the playful vibe introduced by his opening verse — “flow is tight though I got a couple of screws loose.”

During the first week of 2007, “Liberation” could be downloaded from the Stones Throw Web site, DJ/producer Peanut Butter Wolf’s Los Angeles-based label with the staggeringly consistent discography. “Liberation” eventually entered record stores, as many underground mix-tapes do, but with eight months of hindsight, it may mark the turning point in Mr. Kweli’s career.

He retains the carefree vibe that permeates “Liberation” on “Eardrum,” resulting not only in his best output since “Train of Thought” (Mr. Kweli’s 2000 collaboration with Hi-Tek as Reflection Eternal), but one of the most consistent hip-hop releases of the year. The gentle soul of “Country Cousins” plays off Houston UGK’s hard-swinging guest spot. Pete Rock provides the casually catchy hook on “Holy Moly,” over which Mr. Kweli delivers a wry bit of self-criticism about his style and lyrics that deftly defuses outside criticism.

That, actually, may be Mr. Kweli’s key new development on “Eardrum”: a self-awareness about his strengths and weaknesses and the confidence to admit them. It’s a relaxed maturity signaled on the album’s lead track, wryly titled “Everything Man.” The first words heard are Mr. Kweli almost shrugging, “Yeah, they say you can’t please everybody,” over a gentle keyboard wash and a skeletal rhythm track just starting to sway to life. He then proceeds to unleash a dazzling display of verbal wit. “What becomes of a dream deferred / It never makes it to world to be seen or heard?” Then, “The maker of memories possessed the recipe to your fate / Make no mistake there ain’t no escaping your destiny / Especially when till death do us part like wedding rings / I’ll be here forever, put down on everything.”

Using the cagey turn of this one verse — moving from recognizing his shortcomings to boasting about rapping about everything — Mr. Kweli starts to become the vital presence that his peers have long wanted him to be. By admitting that he can’t be everything to conscience-rooted hip-hop — that, at the end of the day, he’s a man like any other — Mr. Kweli is realizing that he may be able to be hiphop’s everything man.