Released just last Tuesday, A Tribe Called Quest's long-awaited album, "Beats, Rhymes and Life" has already stirred up the hip-hop community because of its originality, energy, and funk.
Viewed by many fans and critics alike as the best produced hip-hop outfits and top notch rhymers, ATCQ does not disappoint with this latest release.
While keeping their basic sounds intact, using jazz beats, sampling funk like James Brown's "Funky Drummer," and incorporating humorous lyrics, the group makes some deviations from their previous albums. Following the trend of featuring female singers (like Lauren Hill on NAS's album), this album contains two tracks with singers Tammy Lucas and Faith Evans.
The song with Tammy Lucas, "Inca Again," is the group's first release and the final track of the album "Stressed Out" with Faith Evans, appears to be a track that their record company pressured to include in the album to keep with current hip-hop trends.
The album, as a whole, is darker than their last one, "Midnight Marauders" and a couple of the tracks have a sound that are reminiscent of the Pharcyde's "4 Better or 4 Worse."
As usual, Q-Tip, Phife, and Ali Shaheed Muhammed do a great job entertaining their audience with funny and sometimes insightful lyrics.
Even with an average rhyme, Q-Tip has a voice and style that can lockdown an instrumental most other weak-voiced rappers can't.
The "Slick Tip the Ruler" has collaborated with other artists, even crossing musical boundaries and laying down tracks with Dee-Lite and the Beastie Boys.
One can sense subtle arrogance in Q-Tip's lyrics: the album opens with "Phony Rappers" and Q-Tip opens up with the lines "Phony Rappers, who do not write/Phony Rappers, who do not excite/Phony Rappers, check it out..."
He can still drop one-liners with the best of them: "Toniiiiight, we gettin' off like OJ" and "Yea, move your body, decide to party, 'bout to bring it to you kid like we never did..."(from "The Hop").
Phife continues to dish out his characteristic humor such as this excerpt from The Hop:"Watch me stab up the track as if my name was OJ Simpson/I packs it in like Van Halen/I work for mine, you, you're freeloading like Kato Kaelin/I'm representing wit my crew.../If it ain't Das EFX, then they sounding like Meth/You might as well be Megadeth/Yo, punk MC's better save your ... breath."
ATCQ lets one of their fans, Consequence, flex his muscles on several tracks. Unlike Jarobi who appeared on the group's first album, Consequence is mixed pretty well into the tracks that features him.
The cover, which appears to signify the end of the hip-hop world theme, goes well with album's darker sound. However, the album is not dark as in depressing- perhaps they are maturing. When buying the album, try to pick up the limited edition copy -- it features a 3-D version of the cover.
I recommend this phunky album to anybody who is a fan of hip-hop. Every track is tight with the exception of the last song, which seems to be a song that the group threw in as an afterthought. "Beats, Rhymes, and Life is something to kick back to: nod your head to the beats, and feel the flow of the music and lyrics.
Nicholas Van Amburg contributed to this story.
