The hearts of Native Tongue fans young and old were undoubtedly warmed when Q-Tip announced that the final studio album from A Tribe Called Quest will arrive on November 11th, a year after their final television performance.
Speaking to the New York Times, Tip has revealed the album’s title: We Got It From Here, Thank You for Your Service. Alongside Consequence and Busta Rhymes, the album will also have contributions from Jack White, Elton John, Kendrick Lamar and André 3000 as well.
Tip also spoke on, among other things, finally repairing his and Phife Dawg’s fractured relationship throughout the recording process.
“I really believe he did the traveling back and forth, not for this record, but to make sure that me and him, Malik and Jon, were O.K.,” Q-Tip said, using the names they had as children to emphasize the length and depth of their relationship. “Not Ali. Not Jarobi,” he said, choking up. “He came to my house to make sure that he and I were O.K.” In the months of working on the new album, they realized they were more than O.K. Phife even talked about maybe moving to New Jersey to a place near Q-Tip’s. The old friends were still tight.
As it turns out, the album was recorded in the good old-fashioned way: everyone came to Q-Tip’s New Jersey studio to lay down their rhymes with each other.
It was thrilling to the guys to watch stars like Jack White, Mr. Lamar and André 3000 come through and record. It was even more exciting to have their brother Phife around all the time. But now some of the group members think that all that traveling may have contributed to grinding him down, physically. “Doing this album killed him,” Jarobi White said simply. “And he was very happy to go out like that.”
While Phife is no longer in the physical, his memory will forever remain. On November 19th a street in Queens will officially be renamed after Phife Dawg.
