A Tribe Called Quest - We Got it from Here… Thank You 4 Your Service

The Guardian 80

(Epic)
Recorded before Phife Dawg’s death, the rappers’ first album since 1998 stays loyal to the values they have long espoused

Thanks to the ascendancy of gangsta rap, to Biggie and Tupac, the wider public often expects rappers to die violently. Phife Dawg, from A Tribe Called Quest, passed away in March from complications arising from being a “funky diabetic”. It’s just one of the many ways in which Tribe continue to differ markedly from the more dominant, reductive hip-hop narratives. Or as Phife Dawg himself has it on Whateva Will Be, one of several powerful tracks on Tribe’s first album since 1998: “So I’m supposed to be dead or doin’ life in prison/Just another dummy caught up in the system.”

Tribe started as a party outfit from Queens, but one powered by jazz loops and infused with Afrocentrism, alternately playful and thoughtful, frequently rattled, but not given to violent posturing. They were, emphatically, not dummies caught up in the system, but philosopher poets who always kept what one of their albums referred to as “the low end theory” (bass, rhythm, dancing) in their sights.

Related: Phife Dawg: the socially conscious rapper who gave 90s hip-hop its good vibes