It seemed like the story of
A Tribe Called Quest
ended with the sad passing of original member
Phife
in early 2016. It began with their glory days as one of hip-hop's greatest acts to years of sometimes bitter estrangement, then hit a high point with the group coming together in 2015 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their debut album
People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm
. They had a surprise up their sleeve, though. On the night they performed on The Tonight Show, the four original members of the
Tribe
decided the time was right to hit the studio and make a new album. Repairing relationships was the first step and once that happened, the group (minus
Ali Shaheed Muhammad
, who was in Los Angeles working on the music to Luke Cage) holed up in
Q-Tip
's home studio and started working on their comeback,
We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service
.
held down the producer's chair with a mad scientist's flair, searching near and far through his record collection for inspiration.
Tip
,
, and
Jarobi
brought rhymes that sounded like they'd been sealed up since the early '90s, then broken open and served fresh. Old collaborators
Busta Rhymes
and
Consequence
dropped by to add their skills and energy; new artists like
Kendrick Lamar
Anderson Paak
, who grew up on the
, dropped by to add verses, and some big names like
Andre 3000
Kanye West
jumped in feet first, especially
Andre
, whose rapid-fire verses with
on "Kids" provide one of the record's highlights.
Jack White
adds some of his guitar heroics on a few tracks and
Elton John
makes a cameo as well, singing the hook of the very odd "Solid Wall of Sound."
The sheer number of guests, the long wait since their last album, the shifting tides of hip hop -- all these factors could have led to
We Got It
being a disappointment. Amazingly, it turns out to be almost the exact opposite. Thanks to
's visionary and pleasingly weird production, which draws from golden age hip-hop, old-school jazz, odd samples, dub reggae, and interplanetary electro, the fact the neither he nor
have lost even a small percentage of a step, and the seamlessly integrated contributions from the guests (especially
Paak
on "Moving Backwards"), the album is vibrant, intense, and alive. The group sound like they're having a blast on party songs like "The Donald" or the buoyant "Dis Generation," get mad as hell on tracks like "Space Program" and "We the People," and generally come off like they're still the greatest. This is no nostalgia trip or callous comeback. It's a giant exclamation point on the end of a brilliant career. It's also a tribute to the everyman genius of
, a widescreen look at the record-making skills of
, and most importantly, it's a pure, undiluted, joyous thrill to have the
back and still sounding this vital. ~ Tim Sendra