#Q tip the renaissance download download

As soon as a kid from the boroughs steps up like this, everybody will back him. Kids like him because he kills shit, not because they suddenly love a different geography. This is the answer for old NYC rap heads who screw their faces when a carload of kids drives by blasting Weezy. It's that he truly sons three New York legends at their own game, rapping like he grew up on Linden Blvd wrecking basic beats. No it's not the absence of auto-tune or rock star tropes, and neither is it that he has some great lines ('Ever since I made it up out of Middle America, everybody wanna be up in my genital area.'). If Amplified often saw his voice pushed up to a squeak to keep up with the dance rhythms, here Q-Tip regains the syncopated swagger of A Tribe Called Quest's best, at ease with a sound built on samples and live instrumentation.Īt the end of an extraordinary year in America, hip hop is witnessing the start of its lost icon's second term.Aside from Q-Tip's kind of fun idea of borrowing the 'The Symphony' concept (please shoot a video), there is some genuine insight to be drawn from this remix, and it comes, of course, with Wayne's verse at the end. 'Fight/Love' details the relationship problems of a soldier off hunting WMDs in Iraq, and 'Manwomanboogie' casts a more general eye over the interdependence of the sexes, backed by a raw bass-and-drum beat.

But Q-Tip didn't forge his reputation by reiterating banalities. It's a tone that finds its upbeat echo in 'Life is Better', which features Norah Jones, and 'Believe', a soul jam that's sadly little more than an interlude. He's even confident enough to tempt fate: the album was due for release on election day in the States, and it closes with 'Shaka', a tribute to the late producer Dilla, which samples a speech by Barack Obama, made during the primaries when his campaign was finding its first wind. From the title's promise to the opening lines ('It's up to me to bring back the hope'), it's the sound of a man looking forward in optimism. But if the backstory might have led to middle-age gripes, The Renaissance is remarkable for its lack of rancour. After the 1998 split, their leader Q-Tip took unexpected turns (including changing his name to Kamaal the Abstract), then fell into near silence, save for unlikely appearances on Chemical Brothers' 'Galvanize' and the arm of Nicole Kidman (with whom he has been friends). Tribe, more than any of their early Nineties peers, successfully fused a boho-ish air with the ever-present demands of hip hop's 'street'. Indecision has also bedevilled his former group, A Tribe Called Quest, whose much-touted reunion has been confined to their carrying out a couple of smallish US tours. Other buzzwords and sub-genres, such as bling, coke and crunk, have risen and faded since 1999's Amplified, but they at least saw the light of day, more than can be said for the trio of albums recorded by Q-Tip and subsequently junked, either by faithless record labels or the perfectionist rapper himself. When the best rapper/producer in hip-hop history spends almost a decade without a record on the shelves (despite his best efforts), it has to be considered a crime - if not a tragedy.

#Q tip the renaissance download download

I t's a measure of the length of Q-Tip's absence that the chief criticism levelled at his last album was that it was 'too jiggy'. Purchase and download this album in a wide variety of formats depending on your needs.