Maybe it’s because I found punk rock
first, or because I had been surrounded by rock’n’roll since the cradle, but for
a very long time, rap and hip hop made no sense to me whatsoever. I already had
punk and hardcore to soundtrack my rebellious early teens, and the largely
processed and synthetic instrumentation just didn’t connect with my
sensibilities. To top it off, the radio was just dominated by hip hop in the
early 2000’s, so I scoffed at the genre over and over, writing it off simply as
the sound of selling out.
What a dumbass I was.
Only after college did I start to hear
and feel hip hop’s intrinsic honesty and powerful influence. This knowledge soaked
in very slowly, and really didn’t evolve to a true appreciation until a few
months ago, when I saw A Tribe Called Quest dominate SNL’s stage. Within
the first thirty seconds of “We the People,” I was completely enraptured by their
soulful, aggressive, and wholly meaningful music, and I knew undoubtedly that I
wanted more.
Hardly a week passed before I found
myself a copy of ATCQ’s new record, We Got It from Here…Thank You 4 Your
Service, and I think it’s fair to say that my head simply melted from the
complexity and sincerity this act has pressed to tape. We Got It from Here features an array of sounds and styles so
comprehensive that it plays like a best-of record, taking off with lightning
fast vocals in “Space Program,” grooving gently through “Enough!!!,” and even rocking
a reggae sound for “Black Spasmodic.” Add to this insanely varied palate a massive list of esteemed collaborators including Consequence, Busta Rhymes, Kanye
West, and André 3000, and this
album feels less like a collection of songs and more like a monument to the
power of music.
Between the cast and the composition, We Got It from Here could have become a
gigantic, overproduced, made-for-radio spectacle, yet one thing that really
strikes me about this record is how real the production feels. Many of the
songs are based around a traditional, boom bap acoustic drumbeat that is focused
on groove rather than bass drops or awkward cuts. Much of the compositional
work is also rooted in jazz, with songs like “Dis Generation” featuring
complicated chord progressions as their foundations. This is only complemented
by some incredible bass, guitar, and piano riffs, which include contributions from Jack White and Sir Elton John together on “Solid Wall of Sound.” Even
the audio samples taken from films such as Dolemite and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory further the feeling of this record being carved by hand
rather than simply assembled on a Macbook.
There isn’t a single song on this
record that doesn’t flaunt a distinctive instrumental sound, but in my opinion,
none does so better than “Melatonin.” Atop some funky basswork and one of the
coolest guitar licks I’ve ever heard, Q-Tip dominates vocal duties, his words
riding a stilted rhythm that is as infectious as the beat beneath it. Q
describes with vivid sincerity the feelings of anxiety that can plague the mind
right before sleep, from the personal (“The sun is up, but I feel down again/ On just one hand, I can count all my friends”) to the political (“The world is crazy and I cannot sleep but… / I read the paper so that I can seewhat”). Yet the funk-driven track soon takes priority, evolving into a
tight R&B piece featuring the soulful vocal stylings of Marsha Ambrosius and Abbey Smith. Like many of the songs on We Got It from Here, “Melatonin” refuses to remain static, instead
blooming into a complex and beautiful composition along the way.
The effort and attention to detail in
Q-Tip’s production is as present as any instrument on We Got It from Here, and since it was recorded in his home studio, he was able to apply his perfectionist lens to each piece, tweaking
and tinkering truly until the last minute. Thus it is no surprise to see
this intense intent applied to the lyrics as well. While the record covers a
wide range of topics, one of the most present is that of the untimely passing
of member Phife Dawg during recording. Though grief threatened to leave
Q-Tip and Jarobi White as “two puddles of goo on the floor,” they soon
rallied their strength and sought to celebrate their friend through music.
Both the closing track “The Donald”
and “Lost Somebody” are written in memory of Phife, the former featuring one of
his last recorded verses while the latter shows Q-Tip and White dealing with
his passing. While White calls “Lost Somebody” “one of the hardest things I ever had to do,” the duo uses it to rejoice and honor their friend’s life
with lines like “You and I, we never pretended /Rhymes we would write it out, hard times fight it out.” The remaining
members of A Tribe Called Quest acknowledge Phife Dawg as an integral part in
both their band and their lives, and thus use We Got It from Here…Thank You 4 Your Service (a title Phife
suggested) to remember and revere him.
While much of the record is weighted
by the deeply personal, the scope of the lyrical work on We Got It from Here extends far beyond Tribe’s circle. Q-Tip has
stated that this record transcends each individual contributor, an idea
plainly present in the many political lines these rappers deliver. “Who could be blind to racism?” Q-Tip asks in “Movin Backwards” before
describing a scene that has been all too apparent these past few years: “Feds lining up in riot gear / and everybody’s hands in the air.” Similarly, the
opening track “The Space Program” attacks the powers that be with lines like “They planning for our future / None of our people involved.” ATCQ constructs
this elaborate and tight metaphor of space travel in the song, weaving the
image of all the poor and non-whites being left behind, before poignantly
tearing down the illusion with the decisive and repeated line: “Imagine if this shit was really talkin’ about space, dude.”
A Tribe Called Quest use their lyrics
to conjure awareness in their listeners, capturing a true and strong snapshot
of what it’s like to be African American in today’s America. While the entire
record confronts this theme, no song does so with such candor and vitriol as “Killing Season.” Jarobi’s verse leaves no room for question as he confronts many African
American caused by the police: “Need an abacus to tally / through all the peaks and valleys, yo, I recognize them sadly.” His lamentation of “these fruitful trees are rooted in bloody soil and torment / Things haven’t really changed, or they're dormant for the moment” pulls forward the idea of
institutional racism that still creates barriers in our primarily white
society. Yet instead of simply complaining about these conditions, A Tribe
Called Quest uses songs like “Killing Season” to open “communication and real dialogue,” the weapons that will put an end to the violence and strife
by destroying “the constructs that restrain you from being yourself.”
Front to back, We Got It from Here…Thank You 4 Your Service is a record loaded
with intelligence, passion, emotion, and brutal honesty, and that alone makes
it worth repeated listening. Whereas once I would have snorted in derision at
hip-hop, I have truly been unable to put this album down. Between the heady
lyrics and intricate production, I find in myself a newfound craving for
hip-hop, to learn it, to listen to it, and to understand it. I now know that
hip-hop has never had anything to prove to me—I’m the one who’s waited to step
up to its level. And damn it, I’m very glad I finally have.
Tunes to Check Out:
2) Melatonin
3) The Space Program
