Shortly after releasing their sixth and final album We Got It from Here… Thank You 4 Your Service yesterday, A Tribe Called Quest‘s Q-Tip and Jarobi were invited to Ebro Darden’s Beats 1 Radio show.
In between playing new material from the album, the two legendary emcees/producers gave some fascinating, insightful knowledge into the making of the project, reminiscing on Phife Dawg‘s legacy and why Q-Tip considers November a special month to him.
You can stream the entire interview below and check for some choice quotes after the jump.
Q-Tip gets emotional while speaking to Ebro about hearing Phife Dawg’s voice while working on the album and he describes the feeling and energy around the release:
“One of the things for me honestly it was difficult as a producer to really bring it to a close because you hear the brother [Phife Dawg] voice, you know i hear his voice real talk you know what I’m saying..you solo it and you hear his voice”
Jarobi talks about the similarities and differences between WGIFHTY4YS and other ATCQ albums:
“This one is really similar because it was us in the studio together ya know banging out and creating everything from it’s infancy together. Cracking the old jokes ya know what I’m saying having the same familiarity the brotherhood, comradery like coming out of the vocal booth and watching Phife dancing, ding these dumb dances. And seeing these guys interacting that was for me was one of the most beautiful times, like watching them…”
Q-Tip reminisces on the release of Midnight Marauders and the significance of November to him:
“There’s just so many things circulating around this month of November because it was November last year that we did the Fallon thing. It was November as you just stated that we put our Midnight Marauders, that Wu put out 36 Chambers. It was November that Malik Izaak Taylor [Phife Dawg] was born, on November 20th and this year on November 19th they will be renaming a street in NYC”
Q-Tip speaks on rappers and artists having balance in their music these days. ATCQ wants to bring awareness and truth to people about the current times, through their “message orientated music”.
“And we’re just lovely musicians and artists and that’s all we do, is like we speak and paint pictures and try to speak to a climate but hopefully we will call some sort of uprising internally in that young Jimmy Carter and that young Angela Davis…hopefully we will cause that type of thing with what we do. And that’s why “We The People” is more of an encompassing and not just us it’s all of us as people”
Q-Tip speaks on the unexpected match up of Elton John & Busta Rhymes plus Jack White on “Solid Wall of Sound”:
“It was great working with Elton, he’s just a blast know what I’m saying and for him to kind of be apart of this…it’s funny because I spoke to him and when Phife died I think he said he was in Australia and he dedicated “Candle in the Wind” to him that night because he was on stage”
Q-tip talks about his relationship with Andre 3000 (and Big Boi) and how the track “Kids…” came about:
“Having Andre doing ‘Kids…’ ya know was something that was one of the things that were very collaborative. He came through and did the whole song, chorus, bars – we went back and forth on it”
