Nov 16, 2016 http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/7580400/a-tribe-called-quest-number-1-album A Tribe Called Quest Heading for First No. 1 Album in Over 20 Years 11/15/2016 by Keith Caulfield Will Heath/NBC: Q-Tip and Jarobi White of A Tribe Called Quest perform on Saturday Night Live on Nov. 12, 2016. Hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest is heading for its first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart in more than 20 years, according to industry forecasters. The act’s new release, We Got It From Here… Thank You 4 Your Service, is on course to earn around 120,000 equivalent album units in the week ending Nov. 17, according to prognosticators, and will likely arrive atop the Billboard 200. The new effort, which is billed as the group’s final album, is their first studio release since 1998’s The Love Movement, and the first since the death of the act’s Phife Dawg in March. The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week based on multi-metric consumption, which includes traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). The top 10 of the new Dec. 3-dated Billboard 200 chart -- where A Tribe Called Quest may debut at No. 1 -- is scheduled to be revealed on Billboard’s websites on Sunday, Nov. 20. A Tribe Called Quest has topped the Billboard 200 chart once previously, with Beats, Rhymes and Life, which debuted at No. 1 on the list dated Aug. 17, 1996. The act made its Billboard 200 debut with their 1990 debut effort People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm, which peaked at No. 91 and featured the hit single “I Left My Wallet in El Segundo.” Elsewhere in the upcoming Billboard 200 chart’s top 10, it’s expected that Stingcould notch his 11th top 10-charting effort with his new 57th & 9th album. It’s his first pop/rock album in more than a decade, and would also mark his first top 10 set since 2010’s Symphonicities reached No. 6.
Nov 16, 2016 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/16/a...st.html&eventName=Watching-article-click&_r=0 A Tribe Called Quest Returns to a Changed World With Joy and Grief By JON CARAMANICA | NOV. 15, 2016 From left, Jarobi White and Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest on “Saturday Night Live” last weekend. Credit: Will Heath/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank, via Getty Images In the music business, when you disappear for a long stretch of time, you abandon your right to grouse about how things have changed in your absence. Nostalgia is a cheap crutch and a lame weapon. When the whole world is changing, though, disappearing and then re-emerging in different circumstances can be more deeply destabilizing. The things you held dear might be missing, or under attack. Adjusting is a full-time job. Last week, the members of A Tribe Called Quest, one of the essential groups of the 1990s, came back after nearly two decades into a hip-hop world that had iterated a dozen or more times; they didn’t flinch. And they returned in a moment when America’s racial tensions were at an outrageous level; they stepped into action. It’s been 18 years since A Tribe Called Quest released an album — enough time for eight years of George W. Bush and almost eight years of Barack Obama, for Lil Wayne and Kendrick Lamar, Sept. 11 and Black Lives Matter, Drake and Young Thug, the rise of streaming and the fall of the record store. In its day, the group was at the vanguard of hip-hop’s progressive wing, an exquisite balance of philosophical and attitudinal, melodic inventiveness and subwoofer thump. Its internal politics were sometimes rancorous, though, which meant that last year’s reunion was a pleasant surprise. A Tribe Called Quest’s new album. The members were recording the often stunning new album, “We Got It From Here … Thank You 4 Your Service,” when Phife Dawg, one of the group’s rappers, died in March. The record reckons with shifting sands, both internal and external, personal and political. But strikingly, not musical. The group’s commitment to its history and sonic signatures is intact, and impressive, and rewarding. In truth, it’s hard to tell if the version of A Tribe Called Quest captured on this album — the core members Q-Tip, Phife and Ali Shaheed Muhammad; the sometime member Jarobi White, here back on equal footing; and the longtime associates/de facto affiliates Consequence and Busta Rhymes — is even paying much mind to the surrounding music world. The musicians’ giddiness at working together, at being in the same room, is palpable. They trade lines with a bubbly verve, the sort of eager overlap that comes from working in close quarters with old friends. It all makes for an album that interweaves social and political truth-telling with extreme personal joy, all under a cloud of heartache. The range of grief and grievance Q-Tip spans on this album is dizzying. His voice is still piercingly nasal, his lyrics full of tightly condensed abstractions: “Used to see the TV screen as the place to land my dream in.” On songs like “Kids…” and “Ego,” he raps with wisdom earned over years while still acknowledging the knuckleheaded power of the version of himself that once was young. Q-Tip’s production on the album manages to thicken the group’s traditional sumptuous warmth for the modern ear — its old sound amplified, not rebuilt — without tinkering too intensely with the old component parts: a therapeutic low end, stinging drums, unlikely samples, a rich understanding of how genres bleed into one another. Phife was as sharp as ever here, full of his slick sports metaphors, and also serious about structural social inequality, as on “Whateva Will Be”: So am I ’posed to be dead or doing life in prison? Just another dummy caught up in the system Unruly hooligan who belongs in Spofford Versus getting that degree at Stanford or Harvard Threatened by my work ethic, the way I speak, yo Should I be mentally weak versus being Malik, though? A cavalcade of guests show up to pay respect: André 3000 delivers a characteristically mercurial verse on “Kids…,” Elton John plays relaxed piano on the strolling “Solid Wall of Sound,” Jack White peels off a caustic guitar solo at the end of “Lost Somebody,” Kendrick Lamar delivers angry grit on “Conrad Tokyo” and Kanye West bellows a hook on “The Killing Season.” And the verses from Jarobi White, long the group’s lost member, suggest a great hip-hop career that never was. On “The Killing Season,” he’s scathing, invoking and updating “Strange Fruit”: “These fruitful trees are rooted in bloody soil and torment/ Things haven’t really changed or they’re dormant for the moment.” While this reunion-c-m-tribute album was born of personal need, it ends up rising to meet a social and political moment it couldn’t have wholly anticipated (though on “Conrad Tokyo,” Phife does refer to Donald J. Trump hosting “Saturday Night Live” last year: “Troublesome times, kid/ no time for comedy”). On Saturday night, the group was the musical guest on “Saturday Night Live” for the first episode after the contentious election. Dave Chappelle was the host, and the episode tried hard to grapple with the country’s new political uncertainty. The group performed “We the People…” and “The Space Program,” two of the more bluntly political songs on the new album. At the end of “The Space Program,” the group was joined onstage by Consequence and Busta Rhymes. All of them chanted “Let’s make something happen,” then gathered for a deep embrace, heads down. That gesture was a security blanket and a balm — a healing of a still-fresh wound, and a model for gathering love in the face of unpredictable trauma.
Nov 17, 2016 http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/22607-we-got-it-from-here-thank-you-4-your-service/ Score: 9.0 A Tribe Called Quest's sixth (and final) album was a rumor for 18 years. It's here, and against many odds, it reinvigorates the group’s discography without resting on nostalgia. Since their 1990 debut, People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm, A Tribe Called Quest has been forward-thinking, presenting their albums as full-length meditations on sound and society. They didn’t break new ground as much as they dug deeper into the lands beneath their feet, turning stones and cultivating fertile soil, unearthing the past and tending the roots, with album-length suites centered around loose conceits—the light diary ofInstinctive Travels, the aural dive into drums, bass, and downbeats of 1991’s The Low End Theory, the pan-African flight of 1993’s Midnight Marauders, the dysfunction of hip-hop’s materialism on 1996’s Beats, Rhymes and Life, and the yearning sadness of 1998’s The Love Movement. The latter strived to serve as a healing elixir and balm for what was, up until recently, the swan song for one of the greatest acts that hip-hop has ever produced. Alluded to constantly via rumors and unfounded hopes, a forthcoming Tribe album seemed like wishful thinking for years. Despite the assurances of legendary music executives, fans could not be blamed for being cynical. The group had splintered fabulously, as documented in Michael Rapaport’s unflinching 2011 documentary Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest. Moreover, the death of member Malik “Phife Dawg” Taylor earlier this year, seemed to ensure that any future efforts would be full of excavated throwaways and repurposed vocals from other projects made fresh via studio magic. Yet, We got it from Here exists, their sixth (and final) album, and it’s full of unblemished offerings that were recorded at Q-Tip’s home studio following their performance on Jimmy Fallon’s The Tonight Show one year ago. And, against many odds, it’s an album that reinvigorates the group’s enviable discography without resting on the nostalgia of past accomplishment. The album’s first number, “The Space Program,” is quintessential Tribe—it has that sooty bottom heavy warmness, the uncluttered arrangements and bright instrumentation, and it sounds like a piece of 2016 instead of a fragment of 1994. For the first time in their career, the entire group appears to be at their peak, exuding a well-earned effortlessness. Even if Ali Shaheed Muhammad is listed nowhere on the credits, the act’s three MC’s—the abstract Q-Tip, the ruffneck Phife, and the often M.I.A. Jarobi—are on point all the time, picking up each other's couplets and passing microphones like hot potatoes. On “The Space Program,” Jarobi rhymes “We takin’ off to Mars, got the space vessels overflowin’/What, you think they want us there? All us n----s not goin’,” before Q-Tip nimbly takes over with “Reputation ain’t glowin’, reparations ain’t flowin’/If you find yourself stuck in a creek, you better start rowin’.” The song plays with a sci-fi framing—“There ain't no space program for n----s/Yo, you stuck here, n-----”—yet it's not about an imaginary future, but right now. “Imagine if this s--- was really talkin’ about space, dude,” Q-Tip raps, unveiling the entire song as a metaphor for gentrification, perhaps even forecasting the showdown overthe Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock. And just that quickly, you realize that Tribe—poetical, allegorical, direct, and forever pushing forward from the present—are back as if they never left. The timeliness of this album can’t be understated, nor could it have been predicted. On “We the People…,” Q-Tip breaks out into a mini-song as hook: “All you Black folks, you must go/All you Mexicans, you must go/And all you poor folks, you must go/Muslims and gays, boy we hate your ways/So all you bad folk, you must go.” It follows in the pathways of Jamila Woods’ HEAVN and Solange Knowles’ A Seat at the Table as an album that expresses the deeply painful and deep-seated racist attitudes of current America without rancor. That the hook echoes President-elect Donald Trump’s most famous and reductionist campaign views works in ways that it would not had Hillary Clinton garnered enough electoral college votes to win the election. (For comparison, the video for Ty Dolla $ignand Future’s “Campaign,” released the day before the election, seemed to bank on a Clinton victory in its jubilation, but now feels tone deaf.) Ironically, Tribe may have also been seeing a Clinton victory; Q-Tip references a female president on “The Space Program.” A decade and a half ago, while working on his (erroneously shelved, then belatedly released) sophomore album Kamaal the Abstract, Q-Tip was asked about grown men making hip-hop music—he had, after all, just entered his thirties and was still playing at what is largely a young person’s game. He countered that hip-hop was not solely a youth genre; that the media and commercial forces had made it so; that the top MC of the moment—Jay Z—was in his thirties; that the best art comes not from the exuberance of youth, but the mastery of form. We got it from Here proves that he was right. Q-Tip has long been quietly regarded as one of hip-hop's most thoughtful and inventive producers, and this album is full of accomplished flourishes. On the lascivious “Enough!!,” the vocals of Ms Jck (of undersung alt-R&B progenitors J*Davey) is treated like source material, woven into the musical bed. There’s layered, echoing, melodic sonic manipulations and restrained uses of Jack White and Elton John on “Solid Wall of Sound.” On the introspective and confessional “Ego,” White (again) is used sparingly and smartly for subdued electric guitar touches. We got it from Here is not the music of a producer showing off, but of one knowing what to do and when to do it. There is a bevy of guests on this record, but they all serve the project like instruments that come in and out without attempting to take over with solo turns. When “Dis Generation” uses a sample of Musical Youth’s “Pass the Dutchie,” one can see a labyrinth of in-jokes and conceptual easter eggs that extends to the rhymes: Phife prefers cabs to Uber; Jarobi is wizened, smoking on “impeccable grass” and waiting for New York to approve medical marijuana; and Busta Rhymes—who appears multiple times and sounds more at home with his Native Tongues brethren than he ever has with the extended Cash Money bling set or even on his The Abstract and the Dragon mixtape with Q-Tip—is “Bruce Lee-in' n----s while you n----s UFC.” For his part, Q-Tip shouts out Joey Bada$$, Earl Sweatshirt, Kendrick Lamar, and J. Cole as “gatekeepers of flow/They are extensions of instinctual soul.” It’s what ATCQ has always been—self-referential without being self-serving, part of the pack but moving at their own pace, and able to lightly and relatedly convey observations that would be heavy and pedantic from just about anyone else. It can’t be said enough how simply good this record sounds and feels. Everyone here shows themselves to be a better rapper than they have ever been before, but that still doesn't capture the ease and exuberance of it all, how Q-Tip curls flows and words on “The Donald,” how Jarobi surprises with packed strings of rhyme at each turn, how Phife and Busta Rhymes dip effortlessly in and out of Caribbean patois and Black American slanguage. (And that’s not even taking into account Consequence’s inventive word marriages on “Mobius” and “Whateva Will Be,” Kendrick Lamar’s energetic angst on “Conrad Tokyo,” or André 3000’s and Tip’s playful tag team on “Kids…”) The music is decidedly analog, a refutation of polished sheen and maximal perfection; it’s an extension and culmination of ATCQ’s jazz-influenced low-end theory. But that doesn’t capture the bounces, grooves, sexual moans, random bleeps, stuttering drums that float throughout—like every classic Tribe album, it defies simple descriptions. Many of the songs here hearken back to off-kilter and underexposed gems of days past (see: Tribe’s “One Two s---” with Busta Rhymes and De La Soul’s ATCQ-featuring “Sh.Fe. MC’s” from days past for musical antecedents) without feeling like retreads, the free-wheeling whimsy and experimentation of the past having been replaced a grounded irony and proficiency. So much has stayed the same and yet so much has changed. There’s no overriding story that easily presents itself—no vocal guide a la Midnight Marauders, no driving ethos served on platter like the Low End Theory; the title itself, which lends to an interpretation of this as a project of hubris demanding homage, is never explicitly explained. Even Phife’s death is given due reverence, but isn’t treated as a central theme. We got it from Here... Thank You 4 Your service is all just beats, rhymes, and life. Nothing about this feels like a legacy cash-in; it feels like a legit A Tribe Called Quest album. We should be the ones thanking them.
Nov 19, 2016 Although recently I've stopped buying physical copies of albums, I'm going to try to get this on CD and Vinyl. I haven't stopped listening to it all week.
Nov 19, 2016 Went to the ceremony. Lot of people up on Linden Blvd. Busta, Cons, Q-Tip, Jarobi were there. Rosenberg, Cormega, Mic Geronimo, Craig G, Rockwilder also showed up. Brief clip I recorded above (footage is a little funky but I was at a bad angle lighting wise and I didn't realize rotating a video on Android was such a b----).
Nov 19, 2016 ive actually never heard a tribe album....... i no literally like the only claassc group i havent tried yet
Nov 19, 2016 Whatever Will Be, Space Program, Ego, Solid Wall of Sound, Lost Somebody, Melatonin, Black Spasmodic
Nov 19, 2016 Time to fix that aye. The Low End Theory or Midnight Marauders would be a perfect starting point.
Nov 19, 2016 'Musicians Don't Retire': A Tribe Called Quest On The Work Ahead November 19, 20168:07 AM ET Heard on Weekend Edition Saturday Jarobi White and Q-Tip performing on Saturday Night Live on Nov. 12. Will Heath/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images After almost two decades of silence, last week A Tribe Called Quest released a new album. It's called We Got It From Here... Thank You 4 Your Service. It was a dream long deferred. Tribe, as they're known, broke up in 1998, and though they reunited for a number of performances over the years, an album just never came together. Then, earlier this year, founding member Malik "Phife Dawg" Taylor died of complications from diabetes. But before he did, Phife Dawg joined fellow Tribe members Q-Tip, Jarobi White and Ali Shaheed Muhammad in the studio to lay down tracks for this album. Jarobi White and Q-Tip joined NPR's Scott Simon for a conversation about the new record and the loss of their friend. Hear their conversation at the audio link, and read an edited transcript below. Scott Simon: Your appearance on Saturday Night Live last week has gotten a lot of attention, a lot of plaudits. The album, of course, is getting rave reviews. What was it like to go through that without your old friend? Jarobi White: It's definitely a bittersweet situation, because he laid his life down to do this, and for him not to be able to enjoy the spoils and the fruits of his labor — I really wish he could have been here to see that. Q-Tip: He's actually the one who was the most spirited about us getting back together and was probably the most ardent about it for many years. When it finally happened, he was just so filled with joy. You saw the joy every day. I know that in spirit, he's here — and you know, we all say those things because not only we feel that and believe it and it is the right thing to say. We know it's true. But we also are spoiled, and we wish that he was physically here as well. That's just to be real. The track called "Lost Somebody" — this is the story of you and Phife? Jarobi White: This was one of the hardest songs I've ever had to do. Q-Tip: Yeah, and he says it, actually — Jarobi says it in the opening of his bars, "Never thought I would ever have to be writing this song." Jarobi White: Yeah, it was difficult. I wanted to say so much — give something but not too personal. But I know I had to be uber-personal just to talk about his spirit and the man he was and the person he was and the feelings that he shared. I walk around every day and people are always like — even now, they're like, "Man, I'm so sorry for your loss." I know I had to honor that, so it was really difficult to write that song. You end the song in the middle of a chorus. Jarobi White: Yes. Why do that? Jarobi White: Well, for me, I couldn't finish it. Because my boy's not here. So while it's done, it's still not finished. I don't know if that makes any sense. Yeah. Jarobi White: So it will always have an open end for me, really. I think maybe when we start doing shows and stuff, it'll feel a little better. We'll be able to grieve with a bunch of people at the same time. Q-Tip: We're doing shows? Jarobi White: I mean, hopefully! Q-Tip: Oh wow! No, I'm just kidding. I've gotta ask you about the guest appearances, the collaborations that are on this album, because you had Busta Rhymes, Talib Kweli — also Elton John and Jack White. How did that come about? Q-Tip: Jack, first of all, is a dear brother. He's somebody who reached out to me because he wanted to do one of our songs from Low End Theory. And of course, I agreed, because I'm just a huge fan of his and I think he's just a virtuoso and a great artist — Jarobi White: And a good guy. Q-Tip: And a solid, solid brother. So we did that and we just immediately connected. He's into gear and vintage stuff, and I'm into gear and vintage stuff. Jarobi White: They fully nerded out. Fully nerded out. Q-Tip: No doubt! We kind of geeked out. And then, in terms of Elton, we lifted a little piece out of "Benny and the Jets." If any of you guys remember that song, there's that part, "We're gonna have electric music, solid wall of sound." I just loved that part always as a kid. So we built something around that motif and we expanded it and we reached out to him. And he couldn't have been more gracious, more accommodating. He was like, "I'm a huge fan," and I was like, "Really?" Elton John! Jarobi White: He's royalty! Q-Tip: Literally! Jarobi White: Literally. He's been knighted, yes. Q-Tip: Well, yeah. And he's like, "You know, I had a show in Sydney two nights ago," he said, "and because we found out about Phife, we dedicated 'Candle in the Wind' to him." He was just the sweetest guy. That's nice to learn that about people you admire. Q-Tip: It really is. A tough song I want to ask about here — "The Killing Season." Jarobi White: That song is a toughie. I started that song, and the funny thing about it is I can't even recall which killing it was. Oh my gosh, that says something. Jarobi White: Yeah, I can't even remember which one it was. Was it Trayvon Martin, was it the little boy in Cleveland, was it Freddie Gray in Baltimore ... Jarobi White: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And when I started writing this, the first thing that came to my mind was the song "Strange Fruit." I say, "These fruitful trees are rooted in bloody soil and torment / Things haven't really changed, or they're dormant for the moment / Marks and scars, we own it, only makes for tougher skin / Helps us actualize the actual greatness held within / Been on the wrong team so much, can't recognize a win / Seems like my only crime is having melanin." I just think a lot of people are walking around in a state of perpetual healing — and are never getting healing from all the marks and the scars that we're getting. It's the general sentiment of a lot of blacks; they feel like it's killing season. Q-Tip: Yeah, just to add on top of that, the fact remains that you have to talk about systemic racism. And I think that we have to be introspective and we have to be open and really address this. We can't act like our ancestors weren't brought here from another continent against our will to help build and shape this democracy. And once slavery was abolished, it was just about segregation and it was Jim Crow and the Civil Rights movement, and now we see it's the prison-industrial complex. And now, even further today, it's just outright getting rid of us. And when I say "us," I'm speaking specifically to African-Americans. And so why can't we k--- the killing season, is what we propose. And I think the way that we start doing that is through communication and real dialogue. Because when you study history and you look at every great nation that stands, through most of them, it falls usually at the hands of the people who live there. I don't want that to happen to this country, because I believe that this country is great and we should celebrate that. But at the same time, it can't be a true celebration unless we look at it and really address it. This is not your last album, is it? You've got a lot to say. Jarobi White: I mean, as A Tribe Called Quest — Phife is gone, you know what I mean. But musicians don't retire.
