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Pop Rock Nation

Category: People

all-about-musicians-and-the-people-who-help-them-make-music

  • Q-Tip Returns To Maraud Your Eardrums Once More With The Renaissance

    In the 9 years since his solo debut, Amplified, former A Tribe Called Quest frontman Q-Tip has gone through some serious label issues. His planned second album, Kamaal the Abstract, was shelved by Arista Records right before its’ release for being uncommercial, while various other album titles and release dates have come and gone. Tip, meanwhile, has kept himself busy by working as a club DJ, occasionally hosting VH-1 specials, reuniting with his Tribe brethren for a couple of tours, and apparently dating Oscar-nominated actresses (see Kidman, Nicole) and pop divas (Jackson, Janet).

    Finally, The Renaissance, Tip’s long-awaited official sophomore effort, has arrived, and much to my surprise, it’s an excellent effort. After the blatantly club-centric sound of Amplified, I wasn’t sure what to expect from this album, but Q-Tip does an admirable job of keeping the album danceable while maintaining a left-of-center vibe that matches up admirably with some of Tribe’s best work. It’s an album befitting Tip’s status as a hip-hop elder statesman while not sounding “old-school”. Most importantly, Q-Tip remains true to himself, featuring not one concession to modern-day popular hip-hop and not even any guest rappers.

    One thing that makes The Renaissance special is that Tip did most of this album with a live band and produced almost every track on the album himself. The one notable exception is the propulsive Move, a track that’s sure to get people bumrushing the dance floor. Produced by the late J. Dilla, it reconstructs a Jackson 5 Dancing Machine sample until it’s rendered almost unrecognizable.

    More typical of The Renaissance‘s vibe is the first single Gettin’ Up, a sunny love song with an easygoing vibe. In addition to doing all of the rhyming on this album in his signature nasal voice, Tip also sings most of the choruses on this album and has a pretty serviceable singing voice. He won’t blow you away with his emcee skills, but his rapping has always been more about vibe than “oh sh*t, did you hear what he just said??”.

    Other highlights on The Renaissance include Dance on Glass, on which Tip references his own high-water mark Midnight Marauders and then creates a song that would have fit perfectly on that landmark album. The mellow We Fight/Love features Raphael Saadiq on vocals and is more immediate to me than anything on Raphael’s current The Way I See It album. Tip is at his lyrical best here, dedicating a verse to a couple in romantic tumult while his second verse turns political, discussing the conflict of a soldier. Life is Better is Tip’s tribute to hip-hop history. Tip shouts out just about every important rapper over a funk-laced groove and a chorus by Norah Jones, who appears to be channeling her former classmate Erykah Badu on this song. Either that, or I didn’t realize how similar the two sounded until now.

    The Renaissance‘s emotional center is the album’s final track, Shaka. Tip pays tribute to his deceased friends (and his deceased father) without sounding mournful. It’s the type of celebratory send-off that most folks hope they’re sent into the next lifetime with.

    There’s not one bad track on The Renaissance, although one would hope that after 9 years, enough good material would be amassed to make a good album, right? Q-Tip serves us with a pleasant surprise here, making an album that harkens back to the glory days of A Tribe Called Quest (although Phife Dawg’s presence is missed) with a contemporary flair. It’s good enough to wipe the bad taste of Tip’s solo debut out of any listener’s mouth, and goes a long way towards restoring the good name of a hip-hop icon.

  • Friday Throwback – Scenario

    Q-Tip just released a new album and I figured it was time to make an old Tribe record the Throwback.

    I was just 15 years old and heard a track called Check The Rhime. I was floored. I had no idea who A Tribe Called Quest, affectionately now know to me as simply Tribe, was. They were three guys who created this sound of rap music that was very jazzy and soulful. Q-Tip had this helium sounding voice and Phife Dawg called himself the Five Footer. DJ Ali Shaheed Muhammad rounded out the group. But it wasn’t until I heard a track called Scenario that I really started to understand the difference between what was good and bad in rap music. The posse cut featured another group called Leaders Of The New School (LONS) and it was just insane. It also made Busta Rhymes and he probably owes his career to it. Scenario made me wish I could rap.

    – Did you know that Bo knows this, and Bo knows that, but Bo don’t know jack, cause Bo can’t rap?
    – Phife knew were he stood as he calls himself, “short, dark, and handsome”.
    – Check out Reggie Noble smiling.
    – Wow, how, now, wow, how, now brown cow?
    – You understand the time frame when the references are Bo Jackson and Arsenio.
    – Spike Lee looks absolutely no different 17 years later, except I’m not sure if he still wears the X hat.
    – Q-Tip is my man but I may never fully forgive him for slobbin’ down Janet Jackson in Poetic Justice. Tupac could get it, but not Q-Tip.
    – I don’t understand anything Busta says, but when you’re most well known for the line, “Rahhh rahhh like the dungeon dragon,” does it even matter?
    – Young Busa Bus had mad charisma and also lacked the extra 100 pounds Busa Bus carries today.
    – “Checkady-choco, the chocolate chicken.” Whenever you have a chocolate chicken, life is good.
    – What’s up with the crazy hand signals Q?

    I know that people say that Midnight Marauders is THE CLASSIC Tribe album. Yes, it’s great. But it doesn’t have Scenario on it. And to me, that’s their signature song and that’s why I can never go against The Low End Theory. Will they ever get back together and record again? Who knows, but even if they don’t, I’ll just throw this track on once a month and be fine.

  • Respect Due: De La Soul

    Greatest group in hip-hop history? Well, an argument can be made against that.

    Most consistent group in hip-hop history? Well, let’s see. Run-DMC peaked early and had fallen off completely by their fifth album. A Tribe Called Quest suffered a complete quality collapse with “Beats, Rhymes & Life”, made a slight comeback with “The Love Movement”, and then parted ways. Public Enemy has been decidedly average since “Apocalypse ’91”. The only other hip-hop groups who deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Long Island’s De La Soul when it comes to consistency are kindred spirits The Beastie Boys, and their stylistic followers OutKast and The Roots.

    For two decades now, over the course of 7 studio albums, Pos, Dave and Maseo have given us incredibly musical, occasionally hilarious, sometimes message-filled and always interesting music. Written off as one-note hippies by rap’s harder element during the days of “the D.A.I.S.Y. Age” and “3 Feet High & Rising”, they returned with the stunning “De La Soul is Dead”, an unheralded contender for best rap album of all time. ’93 brought the obtuse, cranky “Buhloone Mind State”, which brought the half decade of collaboration with equally insane producer Prince Paul to a close. “Stakes is High” and “AOI: Mosaic Thump” are solid albums that any other band would be pleased to have as the worst albums in their catalog, while they restored their awesomeness (as opposed to just pretty good-ness) with “AOI2: Bionix”, “The Grind Date”, and a long-deserved Grammy for their collaboration with Gorillaz on “Feel Good, Inc.”

    Along the way, De La has blazed trails musical and lyrical. “3 Feet High” was the first album to turn sampling into an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink art. Their first three albums (even after “3 Feet High” opened up an unclose-able can of worms in terms of sampling laws) reveal a maverick (and not John McCain maverick)’s love of music, with everyone from Steely Dan and Hall & Oates to The Jarmels to Slave and Bob Marley being thrown into the mix. De La has also released some of the warmest sex/love songs in hip-hop history (“Buddy”, “Baby Phat”), the single most chilling song about child abuse ever recorded (“Millie Pulled a Pistol on Santa”), pioneered the grown-folks hip-hop movement with their last two albums, and have collaborated with everyone from Common to Maceo Parker to Teenage Fanclub in the process.

    VH-1’s Hip Hop Honors finally gave De La some long-deserved props in their show this year, as everyone from Q-Tip to fellow Long Islanders Public Enemy showed up to deliver a fun and stirring tribute. Then De La’s three members, who have laid low for a couple of years without a contract and with several fairly major health issues, popped up on stage together and ripped it (one of hip-hop’s better live acts, they’re one of the handful of rap artists with a live album worth checking out). Hopefully the future brings more great De La Music, but the classics recorded over the past twenty years have already done more than enough to secure De La Soul’s place in not only rap, but musical history.