You and I have an understanding

I've never understood A Tribe Called Quest.

I mean, they were a great, great rap group. I've just never been able to put my finger on what made them so good.

It wasn't the rhymes. Q-Tip is basically a really average rapper. His flow is unremarkable and his lyrics were seldom particularly deep or clever. His strengths (I think) are that he's supremely likable and doesn't say much dumb shit. Phife, on the other hand, is a sub-average rapper. I'm not sure he has strengths.

Similarly, the production was good, but not that good. They never blew minds the way contemporaries like Premier or Dr. Dre did.

Instead, Tribe records tended to sneak up on you. A week after Midnight Marauders came out, I remember comparing notes with a friend and both of us saying, "Yeah, it's just okay. It's no Low End Theory." Before long, though, each song wormed its way deep in.

Anyhow, Q-Tip has a new song and it's kind of great:


Q-Tip: "Getting Up" (Universal, 2008)

Like a lot of Tribe stuff, I can't really explain why it works. It probably helps that the sample is from this:


Black Ivory: "You and I" (Today, 1972)

Black Ivory's two albums on Today are among my favorite sweet soul LPs. The songwriting is consistently good and arrangements are flat-out gorgeous. There's a good compilation of the two Today albums, although for some reason the version of "You and I" on there has a re-recorded backing track that's much lamer than the album version.

Producer/arranger Patrick Adams has also been the subject of a couple of compilations in the past few years. Although he's not widely known the way, say, Quincy Jones is, he had a phenomenal talent, producing great records not only in the soul genre but also disco, funk and rap.