What's On AB's iPod?: Q-Tip - "The Renaissance"

Like most folks who came of age in the late 80's/early 90's, A Tribe Called Quest was the soundtrack of my adolescence. People's Instinctive Travels dropped during my last year or so of high school, and unlike most other music of the time, A Tribe's BoHo style was unique and refreshing. Low End Theory and Midnight Marauders were the instant-classic albums me, CJames, and our other buddies bumped on roadtrips to other various colleges in NC. So when the group released their final album The Love Movement in the late 90's and decided to disband, a small part of me wept inside. Q-Tip, Phife, Ali Shaheed, and (sometimes) Jarobi were darn near family. I could go on and on, but these guys will get their own "We Owned The 90's" special edition soon enough. I won't blow that megafeature on a lazy Sunday.

Anyways, Q-Tip went on to marginal success with his 1999 debut solo album Amplified. Personally, I thought his transformation from Native Tonguer to jiggy club hitmaker was kinda pathetic. I'm sure he's still cashing checks from "Vivrant Thang", but I thought it sucked a$$.



The album went gold, but I think Q-Tip realized he'd lost some fans because in 2002, he took an odd turn for the even worse and dropped the brilliantly terrible Kamal The Abstract. You prolly never heard of this album, which was lots of artsy acoustic guitar-heavy tracks. I'm not even sure it was ever released in stores, but there's still copies of it floating around the web if you wanna Google it.

Anyways, fast forward to 2008, and Tip (I refuse to call T.I., Tip. There's only one Tip.) is all the way back at this Native Tongues roots with his latest LP, The Renaissance. Most of the tracks here sound like vintage ATCQ. There's no unnecessary club bangers, Tip isn't trying to sing (as much), and thankfully, no auto-tune/vocoder nonsense.

Nope, just good ole' fashioned hip-hop.

This being the new age, of course the album (which dropped on election day) isn't getting any push from Universal Motown. Peep the cheesy Rik Cordero low budget video for "Move".



The even worse video for "Gettin' Up".



So, the vids are sorta retro-cheesy, but the album's great. If you loved A Tribe (and I know you did), then you'll love The Renaissance.

Question: Did you love A Tribe Called Quest like I did? Did you even know Q-Tip had a new album out?

Q-Tip Wiki [wikipedia]