A Tribe Called Quest

A Tribe Called Quest is a Platinum-selling, Grammy Award-nominated hip-hop group that originated in Queens, New York comprised of Q-Tip, the late Phife Dawg, Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Jarobi White (who left the group after their first album but re-joined later on). ATCQ is known for their thought-provoking lyrics and socially-aware topics, ranging from misogyny to consumerism. In high school, childhood friends Tip and Phife began cutting demo tapes and rapping around the neighborhood. Oftentimes, Ali would join Tip on songs, and they formed the duo Crush Connection. With the addition of White later on, they decided to add Phife and make it a full group, adopting the name Tribe Called Quest after Tip’s high school classmates the Jungle Brothers came up with it. At the time, ATCQ, the Jungle Brothers and De La Soul had founded a collective named Native Tongues, as they all had similar goals to bring abstract and open-minded lyricism to the mainstream. The group signed a demo deal with Geffen Records in 1989, but the label ultimately decided to pass on them. After fielding multiple offers, ATCQ signed with Jive Records, and their debut album, People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm, was released in 1990. It has since been certified Gold by the RIAA. After five successful albums, the group split in 1998—ignited by losing a considerable amount of unreleased material due to a studio house fire—though they briefly reunited for a tour in 2006. It was revealed upon Phife’s death from diabetes in 2016 that a sixth album was already in the works. We Got It From Here…Thank You 4 Your Service was completed by the other members after Phife’s passing, and debuted at Number One upon its release in November 2016.

Ali: Ali.
Q-Tip: Q-tip, and we A Tribe Called Quest and right now you watching rap city on - [inaudible 00:00:08]
Phife: Much.
Ali: Yeah, you think, ah -
Announcer: Yo, check this out man.
Phife: We try to meet the music as much as possible. You know what I'm saying? We ain't trying to be the best we just trying to make our mark as people trying to do what they had to do, you know what I'm saying? I think too many people are worried about what people are going to say about them as far as how they did when they were around, and so forth and so on. I think we just, we're so into being ourselves that we let nothing else bother us, you know what I'm saying? We just do what we have to do. (singing). We have a little bit more to go, like til the end of March, oh no, we have April to go, cause we have shows in April only on weekends. And that's that. Then we chill for May and June, and then July we get on the Lollapalooza tour. And then we're going again.
Announcer: Anyway.
Interviewer-F: How do you feel about going out on a alternative tour like that?
Phife: It's different.
Ali: I never did anything like that before so, I won't know til I do it. It's definitely something different though.
Interviewer-F: Are you guys looking forward to it?
Phife: Kind of, we know it's coming.
Interviewer-F: Video has been a good thing for rap music or?
Q-Tip: No.
Interviewer-F: No? Why not?
Q-Tip: Cause it sucks. I don't like videos and, because it makes people become dependent on somebody else telling you what to think, know what I'm saying? So I can't really see videos, I don't like them.
Interviewer-F: It's a necessary evil, something you've got to do?
Q-Tip: Yeah.
Interviewer-F: So what do you do? You don't like doing them?
Q-Tip: I hope to not do them no more, personally, know what I'm saying? Cause it's a waste of our money. We don't make any revenue off of it. You can argue that it'll help you sell records but there's so many different ways to sell records that you don't have to depend on the video circuit. Which has been proven by Pearl Jam. So I just think it sucks.

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