Hi-Tek
American rapper and producer
Tony Louis Cottrell (born May 5, 1976), better known as Hi-Tek, is an American rapper and music producer from Cincinnati, Ohio. He is best known for his work with Talib Kweli as the duo Reflection Eternal. His father is singer Willie Cottrell of the Willie Cottrell Band, whom Hi-Tek featured on his second album, Hi-Teknology 2.
Career
1996–2000
Hi-Tek grew up in the West End, Cincinnati. He started his 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. 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 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.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q718856. VIAF identifies the subject as 71036015. The Library of Congress control number is no2001012876. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1976, 1996, 2000 and 1998.
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This entry incorporates text from “Hi-Tek” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.