![]() The album’s liner notes underscore ATCQ’s strive for unity: production is credited to “the Ummah,” a production unit composed of Q-Tip, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, and the newcomer mixing genius J Dilla, maybe Q-Tip’s most salient pupil. It’s a deftly rapped episode, an almost quaint effort compared to famous diss tracks such as 2Pac’s “Hit ‘Em Up.” Tribe, then again, never fronted their act like a bunch of gat-carrying gangstas - that was not their beat. Instead of firing off death threats to West Coast emcees, Tip and Phife tell the story of a spontaneous rap battle happening in a NYC subway station - and how they humiliate their rival with their unmatched skills. Released at the height of rap’s coastal rivalry, “Phony Rappers” remains a classy example of a diss track. The track’s message is what makes it so prophetic. ![]() Q-Tip flipped a sample from the vocal soul band The Emotions’ “Blind Alley” to create the diss track - courtesy of his crate-digging instincts. Beats, Rhymes and Life kicks off with Q-Tip calling out the posers on “Phony Rappers.” According to Tip, everyone wanted to jump on the hip-hop train, but few could write great poetry and then rap it. To this backdrop, ATCQ chipped in with elegance. Nas, Puff Daddy, and Biggie against Snoop Dogg, Dr. Hip-hop heads know the story: in the mid-1990s, the hip-hop scene was full of animosity between the East Coast and West Coast. The group was used to critical acclaim, and hip-hop’s East-West rivalry was sizzling. When Tribe released Beats, Rhymes and Life on Jive in July 1996, the stakes were high. The Source magazine, an authoritative voice in hip-hop criticism, gave two of these albums their highest possible rating: five mics. Their records shaped jazz-rap and East Coast hip-hop like few other records ever did. Together, ATCQ released six LPs - from their debut, People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm (1990), to their last album, We got it from Here… Thank You 4 Your service (2016), released months after Phife’s untimely death from health complications. A fourth member, Jarobi White, participated in two albums. The group consisted of producer Q-Tip, a business-minded sample genius and beat-making professor his childhood friend and emcee Phife Dawg, the late-great five-foot-assassin who broke through microphones and their wingman Ali Shaheed Muhammad, the Gemini rapper, mixer, DJ, producer and designed mediator. ![]() Years later, they would be the founders of one of hip-hop’s most innovative collectives: A Tribe Called Quest.īorn in the late 80s in Queens, ATCQ pioneered hip-hop’s Afrocentric movement, a worldview which exalted traditional African values by infusing hip-hop with funk and jazz while revamping old breaks into contagious head-nodding beats. ![]() According to hip-hop lore, they met as infants. ATCQ’s story is a story of unity: unity between jazz and rap, unity between rhythm and rhymes, and unity between two friends - Kamaal Fareed, known professionally as Q-Tip, and the late Malik Taylor, aka Phife Dawg. ![]()
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