New Music Friday: November 12th, 2021 - HipHop |
- New Music Friday: November 12th, 2021
- [FRESH ALBUM] Silk Sonic - An Evening With Silk Sonic
- Astroworld victim dies after concert injuries, bringing death toll to 9
- [FRESH] Juice WRLD - Already Dead
- [FRESH ALBUM] Aries - BELIEVE IN ME, WHO BELIEVES IN YOU
- KAYTRANADA announces new EP "Intimidated" featuring Mach-Hommy, Thundercat, and H.E.R. dropping Nov. 19th
- [FRESH ALBUM] Aesop Rock & Blockhead - Garbology
- [FRESH] Polo G - Bad Man (Smooth Criminal)
- Kanye West On His Yeezy Brand, Mental Health, Larry Hoover, & More Part 2 | Drink Champs
- 2021 Rolling Loud Live Performances
- [FRESH] Bando and Isaiah Rashad - Payday
- [Fresh] Juice WRLD - Fighting Demons (Album Trailer)
- [FRESH ALBUM] Joell Ortiz - Autograph
- [FRESH VIDEO] Fivio Foreign - Squeeze (Freestyle) [Official Video]
- [FRESH] DaBaby - Back On My Baby Jesus Sh!t AGAIN EP
- [FRESH VIDEO] Juice Wrld - Already Dead
- [LEAK] Kanye West - Brothers (feat. Charlie Wilson)
- [FRESH] Rick Ross - Outlawz (feat. Jazmine Sullivan & 21 Savage)
- [FRESH VIDEO] ROSALÍA & The Weeknd - LA FAMA
- [FRESH VIDEO] Key Glock - Channel 5
- FKA Twigs is releasing "measure of a man" with Central Cee on November 18th as a part of the marketing of The King's Men
- [FRESH ALBUM] Smiley - Buy or Bye 2
- [FRESH VIDEO] Aries - RIDING
- [DISCUSSION] Let’s Make Something Happen – How A Tribe Called Quest’s The Space Program sets the scene for a world of acceptance
- [FRESH ALBUM] seeyousoon - HZLIKEHELL
| New Music Friday: November 12th, 2021 Posted: 11 Nov 2021 09:00 PM PST Albums
EPs
Singles
* means not on Spotify/Apple Music sorted by Spotify monthly listeners From /u/KHDTX13 (will be updated): SPOTIFY PLAYLISTS:Fresh SinglesFresh Albums & EPsFull Calendar[link] [comments] |
| [FRESH ALBUM] Silk Sonic - An Evening With Silk Sonic Posted: 11 Nov 2021 09:00 PM PST Listen to it on Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube Music | YouTube Audio | TIDAL All tracks are also on Bruno Mars' official YouTube albeit not listed in featured yet and with comments disabled. TRACKLIST Hosted by Bootsy Collins
9 Songs, 31 minutes. Let me know your thoughts on the album! [link] [comments] |
| Astroworld victim dies after concert injuries, bringing death toll to 9 Posted: 11 Nov 2021 01:02 PM PST |
| [FRESH] Juice WRLD - Already Dead Posted: 11 Nov 2021 09:02 PM PST |
| [FRESH ALBUM] Aries - BELIEVE IN ME, WHO BELIEVES IN YOU Posted: 11 Nov 2021 08:59 PM PST |
| Posted: 11 Nov 2021 08:26 AM PST Pre-Save link: https://forms.sonymusicfans.com/campaign/kaytranada-intimidated-pre-save/ Cover Art EDIT: he just posted a snippet of all 3 songs [link] [comments] |
| [FRESH ALBUM] Aesop Rock & Blockhead - Garbology Posted: 11 Nov 2021 09:03 PM PST |
| [FRESH] Polo G - Bad Man (Smooth Criminal) Posted: 11 Nov 2021 08:58 PM PST |
| Kanye West On His Yeezy Brand, Mental Health, Larry Hoover, & More Part 2 | Drink Champs Posted: 11 Nov 2021 07:59 PM PST |
| 2021 Rolling Loud Live Performances Posted: 11 Nov 2021 06:12 PM PST
[link] [comments] |
| [FRESH] Bando and Isaiah Rashad - Payday Posted: 11 Nov 2021 09:02 PM PST |
| [Fresh] Juice WRLD - Fighting Demons (Album Trailer) Posted: 11 Nov 2021 12:04 PM PST |
| [FRESH ALBUM] Joell Ortiz - Autograph Posted: 11 Nov 2021 09:00 PM PST |
| [FRESH VIDEO] Fivio Foreign - Squeeze (Freestyle) [Official Video] Posted: 11 Nov 2021 09:02 PM PST |
| [FRESH] DaBaby - Back On My Baby Jesus Sh!t AGAIN EP Posted: 11 Nov 2021 09:01 PM PST |
| [FRESH VIDEO] Juice Wrld - Already Dead Posted: 11 Nov 2021 09:02 PM PST |
| [LEAK] Kanye West - Brothers (feat. Charlie Wilson) Posted: 11 Nov 2021 04:24 PM PST |
| [FRESH] Rick Ross - Outlawz (feat. Jazmine Sullivan & 21 Savage) Posted: 11 Nov 2021 09:00 PM PST |
| [FRESH VIDEO] ROSALÍA & The Weeknd - LA FAMA Posted: 11 Nov 2021 09:07 AM PST |
| [FRESH VIDEO] Key Glock - Channel 5 Posted: 11 Nov 2021 05:33 PM PST |
| Posted: 11 Nov 2021 01:52 PM PST |
| [FRESH ALBUM] Smiley - Buy or Bye 2 Posted: 11 Nov 2021 09:15 PM PST |
| Posted: 11 Nov 2021 09:12 PM PST |
| Posted: 11 Nov 2021 09:00 AM PST Five years ago today, A Tribe Called Quest released their sixth and final album, We got it from Here… Thank You 4 Your service. It is my favorite album of all time, and in celebration, I'd like to discuss what I believe to be the best song of all time – the opening track, The Space Program. Background: Who is A Tribe Called Quest?A Tribe Called Quest is the most culturally important group to come out of the 90s. First coming onto the scene in 1990, but not gaining full popularity until a few years later, the Tribe are pioneers of the alternative hip-hop scene. When Wu-Tang Clan emerged in 1993, bringing a then unheard-of underground grit coupled with tales of streets and gangsters, Tribe took another route. They focused on intellect, soul, funk, and on the mellow delivery of their lyrics. They fused together sounds and created beats that defined the subgenre of alternative hip-hop, a sound that contextualized their socially aware and philosophical lyrics. They appealed to the older generation just as much as they appealed to the younger ones, and for the first time in hip-hop, they bridged the age gap, a difficult task that artists today are still trying to figure out how to navigate. Producer and MC Kamaal "Q-Tip" Fareed, the late MC Malik "Phife Dawg" Taylor, MC Jarobi White, and DJ Ali Shaheed Mohammed were far from urban jungle warriors. They didn't tout the standard east coast kingpin mentality, but loved to read and wanted to smoke weed, not sell it. They were modest, but made music proudly, and they made hip-hop for people who were as interested in ideas as they were into humor. Tip and Phife were childhood friends. The two grew up together in Queens and met Shaheed and the Jungle Brothers in high school. Tip and Shaheed recorded together, frequently with Phife, but they never came together as a group until Jarobi joined, with Phife following suit. In 1989, the group recorded a demo with Geffen Records, and released their debut album People's Instinctive Travels and the Sounds of Rhythm with independent label Jive Records the following year. Travels was marked by playful and cheerful lyrics talking about conscious content surrounding Afrocentrism, safe sex, vegetarianism, and youth, and it carried a sense of humor that was absent from existing hip-hop at the time. They went on to release four more albums - The Low End Theory; Midnight Marauders; Beats, Rhymes & Life; and The Love Movement - after which they disbanded in 1998. Each one addressed topics including Afrocentrism, societal norms, the music industry, blackness and blackness as it relates to the n-word, and spirituality. All throughout their career, they were credited as pioneers in the jazz rap subgenre and helped launch many superstar careers, most notably in frequent collaborators Busta Rhymes, Consequence, and J Dilla. Q-Tip pursued a solo career, and, when combined with his conversion to Islam and tendency to be overbearing in the group, began to put strain on his relationship with Phife Dawg, eventually leading to the group's breakup, and culminating in a bitter feud between the two in the 2000s. Through the decade, they hardly spoke, but made some appearances together towards the late 2000s and early 2010s – most notably opening for Kanye West's Yeezus tour for a few shows, as well as making an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon in celebration of People's Travels' 25th anniversary. In the aftermath of that night, the Tribe celebrated a triumphant return, as they began to record We Got It From Here. We Got It From Here's place in AmericaTheir performance on The Tonight Show was pivotal. Signifying Tip and Phife making amends, the show also coincided with the 2015 ISIS Paris attacks. The entire night had a profound impact on the group. "Feeling charged," they came together later that night to begin to record their sixth album. In the studio, Q-Tip's manager Dion Liverpool said, "every evening [Phife would] go down to the house, and he and Tip would spend hours in there vibing and coming up with lines. Seeing them together in the studio joking, coming up with ideas, disagreeing, vibing, and trading vocals, it was pretty incredible. It was like watching a unicorn." Q-Tip later said he felt like they were "kids again." Tragedy struck on March 22, 2016, however, as Phife Dawg passed away due to complications from diabetes. Q-Tip went on to finish the album, with Phife having recorded enough for the album to be completed, and on November 11, 2016, We Got It From Here... Thank You 4 Your Service was released. We Got It From Here came at a pivotal moment for America. Just a few days earlier, Donald Trump was elected as president of the US. The album, having been primarily recorded during the presidential race, touches on 2016's political and socioeconomic landscape in many of its songs. Chief among them is the song "We the People..." The song showcases some blatant problems in America, including police brutality, discrimination, gender equality, and immigration policies. The day after We Got It From Here's release, the group was featured as the musical guest on the weekend's Saturday Night Live episode, and performed "We the People..." for their first song. Introduced by Q- Tip's friend Dave Chappelle, Q-Tip says to the audience, "We need everybody... If you lookin' at us, stand up, touch somebody next to you – Everybody stand up, one fist in the air. We are all one, we are the people." Tip urges for unity, one of the album's central themes, as he, Jarobi, and Shaheed perform their song. Later on, the three of them would come back onstage to perform another song, this time singing "The Space Program." This performance begins as a pretty standard performance. With Shaheed DJing and Tip and Jarobi rapping their verses in front of a mural of Phife, the only interesting note is that they appeared to be up there rapping for themselves and for Phife, rather than for the audience gathered before them – when Tip fumbles his first verse, he just doesn't care, and proceeds to sing the n word nearly 20 times in a row, the FCC be damned. They spent the first two verses moving around on stage, having a good time, and not concerning themselves with hitting every word in the song nor sounding good. They were there to enjoy themselves and to celebrate Phife, and they succeeded. But, when Q-Tip finishes his second verse, he asked, "What we gon' do, y'all? Are we gon' move to the stars? Are we stuck here? Or are we going up to Mars? I think we stuck here. What we gon' do? We can't give up!" The camera then cut away to the audience, as it is revealed that long-time Tribe collaborators and friends Busta Rhymes and Consequence were sitting in the audience, waiting for their cue to join the Tribe onstage. The four MCs rapped Phife's verse for him, showing undeniable energy and chemistry together. The performance ends with Tip looking like he's on the brink of sobbing, as they all join in an emotional group hug onstage under the Phife Dawg mural, truly making something happen. The Space Program's place in We Got It From HereBeing the opening track to an 18-year hiatus, The Space Progam had a lot riding on it. Expectations for what the Tribe had cooked up were astronomical. But the song meets every one. While the song is primarily about unity, in its five minutes it touches on and sets up the album's three distinct themes: political commentary of 2016's America, saluting the next generation of hip-hop as the Tribe says its farewell, and tributing Phife Dawg. The Space Program, literallyThe song serves as a metaphor, and encourages the listener to ask, "What is the space program?" It opens with a sample from the 1974 blaxploitation film Willie Dynamite. Blaxploitation is a term that refers to black action films starring black actors, aimed towards black audiences. Often the movies were anti-establishment and criticized for stereotypical representations and glorification of violence. At the point of the movie where these four lines come from, the top New York pimp Bell explains that the best way to avoid "the heat," or the police, is for the rival pimps to organize and unify with each other. This sets the tone for the rest of the song. Tribe feels that right now, unity is the most important thing. All throughout the song, they call for us to "get it together," and "let's make something happen." It's a very welcoming tone for what later reveals a much bleaker message. While being released on the first album release day following Donald Trump's election, the first words we hear from Q-Tip are "it's time to go left and not right," subtly rebuking the far-right populism that emerged in the 2016 election cycle. Next up, from "Tyson types," to "Che figures," Tip urges everyone in the range from Mike Tyson and Neil DeGrasse Tyson to Che Guevara to come together in unity. Mike Tyson is a Black former heavyweight boxing champion. Neil DeGrasse Tyson is a Black scientist known for his scientific research, social justice activism, and public outreach actions. Che Guevara was an Argentinian Marxist revolutionary and guerrilla leader who helped lead the Cuban Revolution, whose face has become a symbol of rebellion and counterculture for the left. As the intro continues, Phife and Tip plead and encourage for everyone to make something happen, until they both end the back and forth to speak in unison, adding in "Let's," in favor of "Gotta," fostering in the overarching sense of unity. They let the listeners and their fans know that they are in it together. Towards the middle of the first verse, the song's central theme sets into place as the overarching metaphor begins to show itself. The line "none of our people involved" alludes to a general sense of defeat among the Black community, as so often Jarobi has witnessed instances where Black and impoverished people are treated as second-class citizens and often disenfranchised. Jarobi continues the image painted in the line before, the rich elite, isolated away in their own bubble, pour expensive alcohol and live lavishly while the black and minority communities lament. Hennessy is a high-end brand of cognac, and Smirnoff is an expensive brand of vodka. Both drinks have an extensive history of references in hip-hop. The verse then has a few lines that require mentioning:
And then with the phrase "mass unblackening," the metaphor truly makes itself known. Gentrification is defined as "the process of repairing and rebuilding homes and businesses in a deteriorating area (such as an urban neighborhood) accompanied by an influx of middle-class or affluent people and that often results in the displacement of earlier, usually poorer residents." It has often been criticized for displacing those citizens who previously lived there and is looked at as an erasure of those citizens' heritage and culture. The next line, a "three-by-three structure with many bars" refers to two different things that the elite would "rather see we in." First, and most obviously, the bars are a jail cell. A common point of discussion in hip-hop, Black people, and Black men specifically, are imprisoned at a far greater rate than any other ethnic group. The imprisonment of artists such as Lil Wayne, Gucci Mane, TI, Bobby Shmurda, and 03 Greedo have raised awareness for Black incarceration and prison reform. In the song, Jarobi raps that the elite will "leave us where we are so they can play among the stars," bringing back the sentiment that he and his communities are being left behind. At the same time, he introduces the theme that they're being left behind on Earth, as the wealthy make their way to the stars. Secondly, a "three-by-three structure with many bars" refers to Jarobi's status as a rapper, invoking a sentiment felt by some that he should just shut up and rap - this tone has even made its way to basketball, when journalist Laura Ingraham told LeBron James and Kevin Durant to "shut up and dribble," when the two criticized President Trump in February 2018. For the Space Program, the final destination is Mars. Instead of staying home to fix Earth's problems, the elite are leaving to inhabit the red planet. And in asking "what you think they want us there," Jarobi signs off and brings the listener back down to Earth, reminding the listener that the elite would never have the poor, run-down, and minority communities up there on Mars with them. Jarobi's last four lines hold a similar sentiment to Gil Scott-Heron's "Whitey on the Moon," in which Heron asks, "Was all that money I made last year / For whitey on the moon? / How come I ain't got no money here? / Hmm! Whitey's on the moon." When Q-tip takes over, despite the song's bleak and dreary message, he still holds hope that people will "get it together forever." Hope is a hidden theme of the song and is further explored later on in both the song and album. His last two lines hold a huge contrast and significance in terms of the meaning of the song - what really is the Space Program? Literally, it refers to humankind's desire to abandon Earth once it reaches the point of inhabitability, and to "move on to the stars." Programs like SpaceX have already toyed with this idea and it's a common recurrence in pop culture. But because "There ain't a space program for n---as / Yeah, you stuck here n---a," space's inhabiting will not include Black people. Secondly, as mentioned before, the Space Program represents gentrification, as alluded to by Jarobi and as Q-Tip will further describe in his coming verse. In the beginning of his second verse, Q-Tip chides that "And the president's refined, in her wing she's confined / With about thirty Percocets and five bottles of wine." He raises some questions in referring to the president as female. Did he (incorrectly) predict Hillary Clinton to win? Would he have made this comment regardless? Did he want to leave it as "her" to incite the president or simply to raise some questions? Regardless of his thinking process, Tip frames the president as "confined" and isolated away from any other problems, alone with her drugs and alcohol. He feels defeated knowing that the leader of our country ignores this problem and is so out of touch with her constituents. Although Tip is talking about Clinton, it is applicable to almost any major politician. He then alludes to two significant Black people who have made an impact on society leading up to the album's release: Brittany Newsome and Eric Garner. In June 2015, activist Newsome was arrested for climbing the flagpole in front of the South Carolina statehouse to remove the confederate flag being flown. This was not her first act of civil disobedience, nor was it her first arrest. In July 2014, Garner was killed by police after being put in a chokehold by NYPD officers. After being questioned for selling cigarettes without a tax stamp, officers tried to detain Garner, and ended up putting him in a chokehold and having another man forcibly lay on top of him. The incident was recorded, and Garner yelled out "I can't breathe" eleven times before losing consciousness. Garner died an hour later in the hospital. His mistreatment and the lack of conviction of the officers who killed him sparked nationwide protests and demonstrations. At the time, "I can't breathe" became a slogan and chant against police brutality in the aftermath. Athletes from the Cleveland Cavaliers and Brooklyn Nets came together in a December 2014 pregame to wear shirts saying "I can't breathe" on them, to raise awareness and to speak out. Their two tragedies were hardly the first nor were the last instances of injustice towards Black people in the 2010s. Tip then returns to the space program with the lines, "Put so much in this motherfucker, feel like we shouldn't leave / Put it on TV, put it in movies, put it in our face / These notions and ideas and citizens live in space." In the months leading up to the 2016 election, a common sentiment among many liberals was that they would leave the country and move to Canada if Donald Trump was elected. Tip questions that sentiment here, asking why they should leave when they've put so much into their current lives and homes. "We stuck here," so we "gotta get it together." And in pop culture, space is often seen as a luxury and is presented in a very lavish and expensive way. Movies like Elysium and Interstellar focus around space travel and colonizing other planets and moons. Space is a commodity, and is thrust into everyone's face, regardless of whether they are a part of the Space Program. In his next lines, brings the metaphor back down to Earth. He explicitly brings in people of color and people in poverty as those being left behind by the Space Program, and then he finally makes it explicit that he's talking about gentrification. For POC and impoverished communities, those wealthy elite people running the Space Program have pushed them out of their homes in order to make way for a nicer and wealthier neighborhood. Q-Tip then poses a question to the listener: "Did they find you a home?" To which he replies that no, they have not found one. If the listener really had not caught on by now, Q-Tip ends his part on the song by literally spelling it out – "Imagine if this shit was really talking about space, dude." He is not talking about a literal space program. These are the three bleakest lines on the entire song, with each one becoming quieter than the last. Thank You 4 Your serviceAn important part of the song is its music video. Released in June 2018, it was the final piece of art ever put out by the Tribe. The eight-minute video furthers all of the song and albums' central themes and motifs, but it reveals an important part about Tribe's outlook on this generation. The music video begins on a spaceship. Day after day, Q-Tip remains alone and locked in one room, with Jarobi in another, surrounded by TV screens, with Ali Shaheed alone with his DJ headphones, and with a green crystal ball alone in a dark room. Once the song makes it to end of the first chorus, Q-Tip sees a mysterious figure walk out of the room, and he follows. He is transported to a meadow, where he watches the man play chess against a faceless white man in a suit. Q-Tip's second verse begins, and the figure reveals himself to be Q-Tip. At this point in the song, at Phife's outro, Q-Tip, Jarobi, and Ali Shaheed group up around the green crystal ball, looking at a scene not shown to the audience, and rapping Phife's verse. It cuts then to Q-Tip awakening from a nap on the spaceship to an alarm letting him know that the oxygen reserves are critically low. In his room, a TV is on, as rappers from the old and new generation sing Phife's outro for him. Erykah Badu, Common, Consequence, Doug E. Fresh, Alicia Keys, Talib Kweli, Ladybug Mecca, Questlove, Kelly Rowland, Black Thought, and Pharell Williams pay tribute to Phife as faces of the old generation, with Janelle Monae, Anderson .Paak and Vince Staples representing the new generation, as they all beg and plead "let's make something happen." In the Tribe's words, Monae, Paak, and Staples represent "Dis Generation," a theme explored later on the album. Reporter Ta-Nehsi Coates and actress Rosario Dawson make appearances as well. These scenes represent an important moment in the Tribe's history, one that is explored on the song "Dis Generation," and explains what the album's title truly means. On "Dis Generation," Tip, Phife, Jarobi, and Busta spit back and forth rhymes with each other, saluting the new generation of rappers. Rather than outright rejecting the new sounds that have taken shape, most notably like Eminem does on his album Kamikaze, Tip and the Tribe welcome it, and could not be more excited for hip-hop's future. On the song, Tip shouts out some of the new age's essential figures when he raps, "Talk to Joey, Earl, Kendrick, and Cole, gatekeepers of flow / They are extensions of intellectual soul," shouting out Joey Bada$$, Earl Sweatshirt, Kendrick Lamar, and J. Cole for their contributions to modern hip-hop. The song and the aforementioned scene in the music video provide context in understanding the album's title. The album features a handful of rappers. In order of appearance, from the "old-school," Consequence, Busta Rhymes, Andre 3000, Talib Kweli, and Kanye West all provide vocals – five artists who have credited the Tribe as having influence on their work. From "dis generation," Anderson .Paak and Kendrick Lamar provide guest verses – two artists whose careers in alternative hip-hop might not have been possible without the Tribe's work in the 90s. The album's title, "We got it from here, thank you for your service," is spoken by the new generation of rappers to A Tribe Called Quest. The Tribe is finally hanging up their coats, are being thanked for their service to hip-hop, and are leaving the rap game in some capable hands. The new generation has it from here. Word to PhiferPhife Dawg's death in March 2016 sent shockwaves throughout the hip-hop community, but it affected no one more than Q-Tip. They were childhood friends and meant more to each other than the world. They were brothers, and like brothers, they fought. Their feud following Tribe's breakup hurt each other more than imaginable. How Q-Tip was affected by Phife's death was best captured in November 2017. On November 28th, the nominations for the 2018 Grammys were announced, and Tribe was snubbed – not one nomination. Furiously, Q-Tip took to Instagram to rant on his story. "Y'all think it's a caveat because a white man wasn't nominated in no major categories and shit? We were the most Black, cultured group out. That's all we stood on. That's what we represented. This last Tribe album, this stands with everyone else's shit that's up there. I don't give a fuck." He then recalls the Grammys asking Tribe to perform at the 2017 ceremony. "Y'all fucking busted y'all ass to try and get us out there and perform! You think a n---a wanted to fucking go out there and perform after I lost my man? We closed y'all show and we don't get no nominations? The last Tribe album? My man is gone!" In the words of essayist Hanif Abdurraqib, Q-Tip was visibly upset, his voice broke from anger to sadness after having to bring Phife back into the room. The way he fought through the statement as he had fought through the past several months since the album's release without his friend by his side. This isn't how it was supposed to be. He wasn't supposed to have gone on a tour without Phife, and he wasn't supposed to perform at the Grammy Awards without Phife by his side, and he definitely wasn't supposed to be fighting for the validity of his album without his brother Malik there to push him forward. It isn't just as if Q-Tip had hidden his pain before that moment, it was just that he had never peeled back the layers intensely until them. It was brief – he gathered himself and continued his rage at the Grammys shortly after. But it was a moment when one was reminded of the void, and how that void shifted the stakes of the album. And in the moment, it seemed foolish to imagine that Q-Tip wouldn't have cared if they didn't get nominated. Of course he cared, more than anything. It wasn't just for his legacy anymore. It never was. The album doesn't start with the Willie Dynamite sample. It doesn't start with "it's time to go left and not right." It opens when Q-Tip says, "Word to Phifer." There are a few stylistic choices in The Space Program that put Phife at the front of the song. To open the song and for the first ATCQ vocals in 18 years, the two central members of the Tribe, Tip and Phife, come together to bring in the chorus. There, Phife's voice sits a bit higher in the mix than Q-Tip's, a likely intentional decision to put the focus on Phife. The next time we hear Phife on the song comes once Tip and Jarobi finish their verses, and Phife sings the outro. There, the beat begins to lose some of its structure, to draw all of the focus to Phife. With every repetition of the chorus, part of the beat comes back in, also introducing claps and new lines to the chorus, "gotta get it together forever," furthering the song's message of hope. All throughout this outro, Phife's voice sits higher in the mix, so that he's heard more prominently, furthering the album's role as a tribute to Phife Dawg. Towards the end of this verse, the mixing is changed to add a vocal layered effect to Phife's voice, making it sound as if there are multiple Phife Dawgs recording in the studio, adding to the song's thematic tropes of unity and Phife Dawg. As the verse goes on, the hope in Phife's voice becomes palpable and unignorable, a shining light on the song following one of the album's bleaker moments. While The Space Program's tribute to Phife is a bit more subtle, the album has two other piercing songs that are much more direct to Phife – Lost Somebody and The Donald. On Lost Somebody, Tip and Jarobi rap in memory of Phife. Tip beautifully tells the story of Phife's childhood, name-dropping Phife's parents, and closes his verse with some hauntingly beautiful lines:
Jarobi then comes in with lyrics about his friendship with Phife, his ride-or-die. When speaking on what it meant to him, he said that "This was one of the hardest songs I've ever had to do… I wanted to say so much—give something but not too personal. But I know I had to be uber-personal just to talk about his spirit and the man he was and the person he was and the feelings that he shared. I walk around every day and people are always like—even now, they're like, 'Man, I'm so sorry for your loss.' I know I had to honor that, so it was really difficult to write that song." On the other side, though it's still a tribute to the late great, The Donald, named for Phife's nickname "Don Juice" is much more uplifting. Busta Rhymes and Q-Tip give verses hyping up their friend, swaying back and forth with impeccable flow on a wonderful beat. Phife gives one last verse, and it feels like he's right there. The entire song just feels like a few guys having fun, which is exactly the kind of music Tribe made throughout their career. The song is nostalgic and friendly, and it's a breath of fresh air for such a heavy album. The song ends with a 2.5 minute outro where the lines "Phife Dawg what a go on with the crew? Phife Dawg, that's why I had to come through. Phife Dawg, you spit wicked every verse. Phife Dawg, respect the Trini man first. Phife Dawg, I know you had the man shook up. Phife Dawg, 'cause your mastermind cook up. Phife Dawg, you know they back with one another. Phife Dawg, them don't want no problem, brotha" are repeated over and over. Until finally, the song closes with one piercing line: "Phife Dawg." These are the last words ever spoken from A Tribe Called Quest, which is fitting, seeing as their first words ever spoken, on Push it Along, are Q-Tip. The Tribe begins and ends with Q-Tip and Phife Dawg, and now that Phife is gone, there's nothing left. At the end of The Space Program's music video, Q-Tip, Jarobi, and Ali Shaheed are clad in a meadow at dusk in desert robes and are the only people in sight. Q-Tip looks around and focuses on something off-screen, as if to say goodbye, as the three artists walk off into the sunset. The screen goes blank, and Phife is paid tribute one last time as two words appear in the bottom right corner: "For Malik." The bassline to "Can I Kick It" comes in, as the credits roll for both the music video and for A Tribe Called Quest's career. Gotta Get it Together ForeverAbove all, We Got It From Here is an album about acceptance. The Tribe have found themselves in a world full of uncertainty. What comes next for Black people? How do they fit into hip-hop today? How do they move on from losing their brother? It would be incredibly easy to look at everything and to just give up. There are times on this album where it seems like that's what's happening, but Tribe just get right on up and ask what they can do to make it better, to make something happen. And, by the end of the album, they come to accept the world they're living in, while also acknowledging what they can to make something happen. The Space Program sets up all of the album's themes perfectly, and I can't think of a better example of accepting what is right now while also remaining hopeful for change to come. We got it from Here… Thank You 4 Your service is my favorite album of all time, and The Space Program is a perfect opener, and a perfect song. There's no better way to end an 18-year hiatus, and they truly made something happen. Phife forever. [link] [comments] |
| [FRESH ALBUM] seeyousoon - HZLIKEHELL Posted: 11 Nov 2021 09:11 PM PST |
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