New Q Tip Interview

[On The Edge of Insanity]

Q-Tip: Check The Time Y'all
By Tai Saint-Louis




In an industry dominated by new, young talent, it's not easy for a rapper with a career spanning more than ten years to be taken seriously. Sure, that rapper would be respected, but not necessarily as someone who could drop a relevant album. Those who have tried, with the exception of a rare few, have either seen their efforts lost between shelves and label politics; or have sorely disappointed their eager fans, thus solidifying their "has-been" status.

With Live at the Renaissance, set to hit stores this fall, Q-Tip hopes to escape the curse of the comeback album and maybe teach a history lesson or two. In addition to creating a more-than-solid offering, bolstered with guest appearances by collaborators old and new [think Consequence and Andre 3000 on the same track]; Q-Tip's timing couldn't be better. After all, the first two generations of Hip-Hop fans are now in their late twenties and upward, and are ready for music with a little more substance. Since he's admittedly feeling less experimental than he has been since entering the post-Tribe Called Quest phase, new audiences may be more receptive of what he has to say. And from what record execs and journalist heard this summer during a listening session for Q-Tip's second solo effort, he's certainly back to classic form.

AllHipHop.com: Where has your musical vision taken you to now with this album?

Q-Tip: I feel like as a Hip-Hop nation, we've been really successful in terms of business. A lot of dudes have been able to expand their brands or spin 'em off into different insulary worlds: teams, clothing lines, all this and all that. And it's great that dudes is making paper or whatever, running they companies and everything. But now that we've gained some sort of success and made some money, now we need to come back and focus on the music and making the music strong again, and making it colorful and exciting again. 'Cause I feel like it hit a wall. And I just think that dudes need to focus on the music and make it great again. Make music that people can play 10-15 years from now. Somebody's always gonna listen to Paid In Full. But you know, certain dudes make records that, they may be hot and may be bangin' in the clubs, but you gonna hear it 15 years from now. I just want dudes to really take care of the game.

AllHipHop.com: Having come from a time when most artists had a more realistic message to their music how do you think we managed to get to where we are now? It seems like Hip-Hop has gone so far left from where we started. How did we lose the balance between the party side and the responsible side?

Q-Tip: Absolute power corrupts absolutely. So when dudes get in the position where they making all this money and they striving, getting all this power, n***as forget about any form of consciousness. Because they so wrapped up in the paper chase that anything that has anything to do with anything spiritual is just a hold up. Because anything spiritual or anything of some form of consciousness, for lack of a better word, is going to inform you of the trials and tribulations of success, or of monetary success rather. So that may get n***as off they hustle, and n***as ain't got time for that. They got time for giving n***as what they think that they want and just supplying that. And dudes don't wanna f**k up they money, so they just keep hitting dudes with the same thing. But if everybody is so hood, n***as gonna know one of the things we used to say when we used to shoot cee-lo: scared money don't make no money. So you gotta take chances. I think unfortunately, the fact that dudes is making all this money has deaded consciousness because they get money doing that one thing.

AllHipHop.com: Even when you were with A Tribe Called Quest, you never really stuck to the formula that everybody else was using. Yet, for someone who's regarded as an icon in the genre, it has to be frustrating that people are so reluctant to accept it when you do bring something different.

Q-Tip: Yeah, I was saying to somebody earlier today, it's not the age where you can just come with something and be out the box different and pop off. Today, you have to have an association with somebody.

AllHipHop.com: And you?re Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest?

Q-Tip: History don't make a difference either. History don?t matter no more. N***as is looking at me like, :Aight, yeah?" People who are informed, say nice things and that's cool. But the people out there, they don't care about history, they just care about what's poppin' now. And the thing about me and my music is I really feel like I try to put something that sticks to your gut, something that can make you get in that happier mood, and make you think about who you are as an individual, think about certain things, think about love. You know, think about things to charge your soul in a positive light. But at the same time, I'm not trying to be sappy or be corny. I still have an edge and all of that. I just try to be inventive. So I think, to answer your question, the way that you can do it if you have something that feel may be off the beaten path, is that you have to be strategic and think of a way, how can I slip this thing on dudes where I don't take them too far left, but just enough that they can say "Oh, this is different but I still like it." And then you can start putting a little bit more on.

AllHipHop.com: With Live at the Renaissance, what did you do differently than you did with Amplified?

Q-Tip: The different thing about this that people will notice is that I used live musicians. I mean, I still got the Hip-Hop beats bangin' and all of that. It's still got a little bit of that feeling of almost Tribe in a way. But you know, early Hip-Hop records with like, Grandmaster Flash, Treacherous Three, Whodini, they used live musicians and still had a Hip-Hop sound to it. So I just, in my own way, incorporated live musicians in my music, but making it sound real Hip-Hop. People are gonna notice that difference. And it kind of has more of a hard edge to it. Those qualities are existing on this record.

AllHipHop.com: Lately, there's been a lot of TV shows and specials paying homage to Hip-Hop. And now almost every college or university has a Hip-Hop class. But it seems like that education isn't going back to the Hip-Hop culture. How do you think we can manage to get that back to our youth?

Q-Tip: I think it's incumbent upon the artists and it's incumbent upon the industry to institute that. In terms of artists, I be speaking to Flash all the time and I'm trying to figure out a record to do with him so that I don't beat people in the head, [but] where people are like, "Who?s Grandmaster Flash?," and then they do the knowledge on they own. Grandmaster Flash, Afrika Bambaataa and Kool Herc invented Hip-Hop! If it wasn't for the three of them, none of us would be here. Them three right there laid the groundwork for what this s**t is. Them dudes need to be respected and honored constantly by every Hip-Hop artist, regardless of what side of the fence you're on. Them three dudes right there, and that's far as it goes. And people need to know that. People need to know how Hip-Hop came about in 1974 in The Bronx, New York in a desolate, f**ked up ghetto; almost on the end of Vietnam, post-Civil Rights movement, heroin is running rampant throughout the ghetto. We just came out of a sexual revolution, Black folks can't find no jobs, there?s a lot of gangs that's been formed. And the education system is poor, there?s no music in schools, or whatever. We got stripped of a lot of s**t, so how did this thing come about, from a social, and artistic and a spiritual point? The artists need to know this! So that when we go in the studio to make some new s**t, we have that history in us so we can start drawing on that information and poppin? it in the music.

AllHipHop.com: How do you personally take what you've gotten out of your musical career to affect change socially? Do you feel that's something you are able do?

Q-Tip: Yeah. I feel spoken word is powerful. I feel like I could definitely affect a change to that. And I hope to do that. I have a, I don?t know how well this song is gonna go, but I have a song called "F**k Fox," about Fox News. But I'm not doing it from a position of "Fox News is the devil;" I put myself in a regular cat sitting, flipping the channels and doing the knowledge and saying, "Hold up! And then just putting it in a real regular dude instinct, so regular folks can do the knowledge. So little s**t like that, I think the music, again, is a tool to kinda bring some sort of awareness about it, but not beat dudes in the head where [they] feel like you talking above them.

AllHipHop.com: Do you still find that you get more acceptance outside of the U.S. than you do here?

Q-Tip: Yeah, I do. The crowds out in Europe, or Africa, Australia, Japan, the Philippines Hip-Hop is huge all over there. They know the history. It's crazy, you say DJ Pete Jones to them, and they like, "Yeah, from The Bronx." They know they s**t.

AllHipHop.com: Do you think it's because we have too much access to it here?

Q-Tip: We don't appreciate it.

AllHipHop.com: Has that changed over the years or has it always been this way?

Q-Tip: That we don't appreciate? I think as Americans, that's just how it is.

AllHipHop.com: So how you gonna be all conscious and everything, and we see you in the newspaper linked to Nicole Kidman and all of that?

Q-Tip: [Laughs] What do you mean, "How am I gonna be conscious?"

AllHipHop.com: To a lot of people that might seem contradictory...

Q-Tip: To dispel all of that: Nicole, I know through my acting coach. We first met because there was talks of us doing a flick together. And then, we just became friends. This girl she works with was a great friend of mine, we?ve know each other for years. So it's just like, you know people through people. And then when dudes walk down the street and kick it with somebody, all of a sudden you f**kin' 'em.

AllHipHop.com: You mentioned the acting. Are you working on anything on that front?

Q-Tip: I'm developing this film for Killer Films about Miles Davis. It's called Funny Valentine, Nelson George wrote it. So, I'm excited.

AllHipHop.com: I heard you say in another interview that, despite the Tribe Called Quest reunion tour, there won't be a reunion album. Is that still the case?

Q-Tip: Yeah. The Tribe thing, we gonna keep doing shows. But it's just the label situation with Jive, where we're at with the contracts, we still at a stalemate, we don't know how it's gonna progress. So, we just tell everybody, right now: it's not looking good.

AllHipHop.com: This is the first time New York isn't on top of the Hip-Hop game. Do you think that?s a plus or a minus for the industry as a whole and for New York?

Q-Tip: I mean, it's Hip-Hop that's being played, so that?s a plus. But, just me being New York and having that New York bias, I'd like to see dudes in New York stick together more and be more creative. 'Cause this is the home. So it'd be nice if dudes could stop fighting. Everybody in New York got beef with everybody. Jada got beef with 50; 50 got beef with Fat Joe; Jay-Z got beef with Nas? N***as is stupid for that, to me personally. I think the n***as is crazy, because everybody really needs to be camaradering together. Because, really it's like, what are we fighting over? Let all of that go and people need to start focusing on getting music poppin.'

I'm really looking forward to his album, he's been ripping up all of his recent guest appearances.

[UKnowWhatItIs: welcome to my traps....game over]

Gonna read this later,thx.

[h cottie is bac-tive?]

i got halfway thru then took a cigarette break caus my eyes were buggin  ///good looks tho