httpss://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHRnvjCkTsw
Explaining the return of A Tribe Called Quest to the pop firmament is nigh impossible without hyperbole, so goes: Imagine The Beatles had reunited to give us all one last classic, something as substantive as Abbey Road – instead of “Free as a Bird,” the quaint single the Fab Four released 25 years after breaking up.
Tribe wasn’t the first hip-hop act to try sensitivity.
The members – Q-Tip, Phife Dawg, DJ Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Jarobi White – brought an everyman aspect to rap at a time when it was dominated by groups of outsized, superheroic stature: Run-DMC, N.W.A, Public Enemy.
At a time when James Brown samples were ubiquitous in hip-hop, Tribe’s early albums gravitated instead to outlier sounds: snippets of Jimi Hendrix, Ron Carter and more obscure 1970s jazz.
We Got It from Here features White’s guitar playing on “Lost Somebody” and the superlative “Ego.” Elton John, the kind of artist that the Tribe of the early ’90s could only have conjured by sampling, appears in the flesh on “Solid Wall of Sound,” interpolating his own lyric from 1973’s “Bennie and the Jets.”.
On “Dis Generation,” Q-Tip hat tips Joey Bada$$, Earl Sweatshirt, Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole as other “Extensions of instinctual soul,” and Lamar himself shows up on “Conrad Tokyo.” Consequence and Busta Rhymes, both of whom guested on Tribe records in the ’90s, to toe-to-toe on “Mobius.” “Movin Backwards” features the modernist Anderson.
Paak, whose brilliant sophomore album, Malibu, might be We Got It from Here’s only competition for hip-hop album of the year.
Perhaps the most stunning revelation is Jarobi White’s evolution into a stand-up MC. On People’s Instinctive Travels, he was a master of ceremonies, hosting the album in a running musical skit.
He grants himself the last word on “Ego,” technically the penultimate song but a stronger conclusion than closing track “The Donald.” “This is the last Tribe and our ego hopes that you felt us,” he says, indicating that with this release, A Tribe Called Quest may truly call it quits.