|
Background: At the time I was publishing The Cipher- Miami's Hip Hop Newspaper. Our photographer, couple of homies, and myself went to cover a Sunz of Man/ATCQ show at Studio 183, a venue in Carol City that was known for hood rap shows, comedy shows, and the occasional rave. We're standing around waiting for Sunz to perform when the promoter lets me know that Phife just walked in and is backstage chilling.
I'm like "WTF?" Promoter explains he's just dolo and hanging out, and do we want to talk to him? shiiiiiieeeet (c) We go backstage and find him in the dressing room. Give him a pound, explain who we are, we'd appreciate any time he can give us, etc. He's down for it. I notice he's under the weather, so I expect the usual 10-15 min. rap industry "interview"
The whole time I'm thinking "why is he alone?" No Tip, no Ali, no crew, no nothing. At this time they were recording The Love Movement, but the first single wasn't out yet. Little did I know...he tells me ATCQ is breaking up. WHAT.THE.FUCK???
No, this can't be real. Not only did I grow up listening to these dudes, we had the exclusive. I mean, he literally got off the plane and went straight to the venue. I'm hype cuz we're scooping everyone else, but upset that they're done.
Here's the excerpt from my upcoming book:
The dressing room backstage at Studio 183. A somber Phife Dawg takes a seat as Godfree and I gather around and set up the tape recorder. No small talk is exchanged, for what we have just heard has left us speechless: A Tribe Called Quest is no more. After five albums and three classics in a row, the group that carried the torch for innovation and creativity in the 90’s is calling it quits.
Naturally, we all wanted to know why. Also on my mind was the fact that we were scooping the rest of the media; all the big national rags had lead times of at least a couple of months, which meant that we would be getting the exclusive and out on the streets first. Although we had nowhere near the reach of The Source or Rap Pages, at least we had South Florida covered, and that was what we were all about to begin with. I suppose it was only fitting that our biggest story appeared in the God number 7th issue:
Growing up listening to ATCQ, the thought never ever crossed my mind that they were capable of separating and pursuing different paths; it’s almost like the natural order of the universe has been altered. Imagine the sun not rising tomorrow: that’s the feeling I get knowing that Q-Tip, Phife, and Ali are no more. Goddamm! Was it only yesterday that I was losing my mind at a house party when the DJ spun “Scenario” or kicking game to a fly honey as “Electric Relaxation” played in the background? The early 90’s without Tribe would be like the late 80’s without Eric B. & Rakim or the 70’s without Kool Herc. Trendsetters and innovators are generally not acknowledged until their time has passed, but Tribe got love from the get-go.
While “Bonita Applebum” caught on with the pop crowd, any true head can recite “Luck of Lucien” off the top of the head. Their ability to crossover yet not sell out or switch styles remains unmatched. Able to rock Lollapalooza and The Apollo at the same time, Quest seemed simple and to the point on the surface. True, they never had super-complex scientifical rhymes or way out samples, but the secret to their success remained in making the difficult seem easy: Three back to back to back classic albums, never rhyming about the same thing twice, and working with everyone from Ron Carter to Busta Rhymes.
What follows is the best and worst interview I’ve ever done. It’s not every day that I get to build with someone whose voice accompanied me from middle school to my first year of college; it felt like meeting a long-lost friend or relative. However, nothing could be worse than talking about breaking up and moving on. Originally scheduled for an autograph session at Spec’s South Beach and a show at Studio 183, Tip and Ali couldn’t make it out of New York, leaving the Phifer on a solo mission. Having arrived on the late night flight from Atlanta, where he currently resides, he was visibly tired. Rocking a matching Mets cap and jersey with mint-condition Nike Airs, he spoke at length about the past, present, and future. To some of the new jacks this might seem a little over-dramatic, but Hip Hop will never be the same.
Omen: what was the reason for the break up?
Phife: It’s no internal beef or nothing like that, we’ve been doing it for ten years as far as ya’ll know, but it’s really like twenty years for us. We felt like we said everything we could say as A Tribe Called Quest. I guess maybe it’s a point where we’ve outgrown each other to a certain extent. Tip’s gonna do an album, I’m gonna do an album. We still keeping it in the family, just not under that name.
As far as the break up, we still down, but we’ll take different avenues to success and just handle our business. Maybe later on in the future we’ll come back together as a team, but right now it’s a dead issue. Making records for Jive is like in vain as far as I’m concerned, cuz they’re not putting their full foot in it to make it go anywhere. KRS-One’s barely going gold! It has more to do with business than internal beef. Every group has problems but we’ve always been able to squash our differences. It’s just time to move on and try other things.
Omen: some are saying that the label instigated it because of the tactics they’ve used when your records were released, as far as promoting it
Phife: I’m not gonna say that the label had anything to do with the break up. Like I said, it’s a little bit of everything that you go through being in this industry. It’s not easy task, with management messing up, labels half-assing, people leaking out product way before it’s time to come out, promotional differences, and then differences within the group, where you might wanna try to go this route but one person wants to go route. It’s a lot of selfishness going on in the group at the same time, so I’m not just going to point the finger at the label. It’ a lot of different things in the pot not making smell too good.
Omen: You have a solo album in the works. Do you feel you have to take a break or…
Phife: I’m not taking no break, I’m actually seven songs deep into my solo project so hopefully I’ll put a single out by the spring. And then put an album out by the middle or end of August .
Omen: What are your most memorable experiences from the years?
Phife: Damm, it’s a lot of those. As far as recording, doing “Scenario” with Leaders. Cuz little everybody know, we did like five different versions. At one point, it was us, Leaders, Black Sheep, our manager Chris Lighty was even rhyming on it. It’s like a whole bunch of different “Scenarios” we did. Pos from De La was on it. As far as touring, Lollapalooza 94 was an ill experience. Cuz I ain’t really wanna go, but at the end of the day it was a fat check!
The highlight of my career was moving out of New York to Atlanta. Getting my own crib, no parents, just down south chillin. As far as performing, I don’t know… Lollapalooza was cool, but one of our best shows was probably at Norfolk State University back in 91 when Low End just come out. Cuz the way people accepted us, that was kind of a shock. We never got into it knowing we’d be accepted like that, we just did it cuz we loved doing it. At Howard homecoming, that was like the illest show: people bumrushing the stage, girls faking like they was gonna faint just to get up on stage and touch us, that shit was crazy!
Omen: what do you feel has been the legacy ATCQ left for Hip Hop? Some people talk about People’s Travels and Low End as blueprints for Hip Hop albums. Does that make you look back as trendsetters?
Phife: I don’t like to pat myself on the back but if there was a Hip Hop hall of fame I think we’d be up in there. We were always in our own little world. If it was a Mobb Deep, Noreaga, or Jay-Z that came out, we stayed in our little spot and did what we had to do as artists. I don’t think we really were that different, it was just so many people being the same. A lot of people duplicating each other’s rhyme styles, cadences, beats. There was a time in Hip Hop where you’d get your shit smacked if you bite the next man’s beat or if you bit his cadence.
As far as Low End, People’s, and Midnight being emulated, we couldn’t even emulate it in a way. That stuff was a curse for us because look what happened on Beats, Rhymes, and Life. Niggas was like “what the hell is that?” There comes a time you gonna have high points low points. But one point we always had was that we was consistent. Hence the reason why I always tell people that EPMD was one of my favorite groups, because they maintained that gold status. I’m happy for what we accomplished, hopefully brothers and sisters that come out now like Lauryn, Erykah Badu, Outkast, Goodie Mob…I respect them cuz they being themselves.
All these other rappers talking about the rocks on they hand or the Navigators they whippin, come on man. How long you gonna talk about that? On some of the records that I’m doing I talk about it a little bit there’s a line you gotta draw between all of that because after a while people are gonna be like: “he just rhyming for little kids now.” Only the kids from like 11 to 17 years old wanna hear about rocks, cars, jewels, and chicks.
When you look at all the albums that we’ve come out with, they always had a meaning to it. “People’s Instinctive Travels and The Paths of Rhythm,” a lot of people can’t even adjust to what that means. It’s saying that people have the instinct to travel. Anywhere you go, take the train, bus, car; you got a tape deck, boombox, got your music. People have an instinct to travel in the paths of rhythm; music makes the world go round. “The Low End Theory,” our meaning is: the black man, or Latino, us basically, are always at the low end of the totem pole no matter how you look at it. And then the other meaning is the bass that we had within that album, cuz it was strictly boom boom boom! “Midnight Marauders,” to maraud is to steal, loot. We was trying to steal ya’ll attention, your eardrums. The midnight part, everything we did was at night. We party at night, fuck girls at night (laughter), hit the studio at midnight.
“Beats, Rhymes, and Life,” that’s self-explanatory. “The Love Movement,” everybody’s talking about their love for chicks, cars, gold, platinum, jewels, and all of that. Our love is the love for the music, the love that we got for mankind, for our family. We need to get back to that cuz it’s not a lot of people talking about love for your family. Once you have all the success, shining lights, red carpet rolled down for you, you gotta give thanks to Allah and your family for being there and supporting you. We trying to reach out to the youngsters hoping that they can get up on it. But like I said, they into the cars and glocks. You can’t really beat it right now, you just gotta let ‘em know that there’s something else they can latch on to.
To be continued in The Cipher: A History of Hip Hop in Miami. Phife Dawg Rest In Power!
|
Printer-friendly copy 
Email this topic to a friend
General Discussion 
