Q-Tip-”Move”
I can’t tell how much I like Q-Tip’s, The Renaissance. It’s good sure, but it’s impossible to listen to without noting the elephant in the room: the fact that Q-Tip has been a.w.o.l. for most of the decade and y’know, that whole “centerpiece of one of the greatest groups of all-time” thing. So without contrasting it to the back catalogue, let’s just leave it at that it’s alternately clever, complex and fun; moreover, it feels right that it dropped during this weird, wonderful week.
Anchored by a half-dozen outstanding tracks (that co-exist with benign neo-soul soporifics), the greatest of the bunch is “Move,” the lone J Dilla contribution. Measuring up to anything the pair ever cut, its first half sounds like a successful realization of what they’d intended to do on Tip’s solo debut, the more uneven Amplified. It’s an upbeat, dance-workout type track that nails the platonic ideal that Tribe always achieved: lyrical and hard-core enough for the dudes, blithe and bouncy for the ladies.
Yet its the latter half of the song, the part excised from its video that makes “Move,” a petri dish of what makes both Dilla and the Q-Tip so special. With a flip of the beat, the sweaty rap-disco descends into an eerie whistling, subway banger. Gone is the pop sensibility flexed seconds earlier. In its stead is a younger, hungrier rhymer, Tip recounting his days murking chumps on the A Train line. The side of the Abstract that you never think about when you think about Tribe Called Quest, the days when he was a helium-voiced teenager eager to show and prove. There’s a fierceness to the song that makes it much more than an exercise in nostalgia, the sort of greatness that leads you to believe that the album title isn’t just bombast.
Shea Serrano on Q-Tip’s The Renaissance in the Village Voice.
Download:
MP3: Q-Tip-”Move”
MP3: Q-Tip ft. Camp Lo-”Gettin’ Up (Remix)”
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November 6th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
“There’s a fierceness to the song that makes it much more than an exercise in nostalgia, the sort of greatness that leads you to believe that the album title isn’t just bombast.”
You know, I almost felt the same way about the second half of the song until he kept repeating said bombastic album title on the hook. Like the surest way to convince me that your album is not, in fact, the renaissance of your career is to keep saying that it is over and over.
November 7th, 2008 at 8:57 am
So, we almost agreed on something? One day, Tray, one day.
I don’t mind the repetition, mainly because it makes me think of Renaissance Faires. Which is always inherently funny.
November 7th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
I agree - the repetition doesn’t really take anything away from it. The beat kills and he rolls out line after line that wash away the past decade - he killed it last night on Letterman too - definitely worth checking out!
November 7th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Renaissance Faires are very funny, but I’m not really seeing greatness in that kind of humor. Like really, what it reminded me of more than anything was Lupe announcing that The Cool was, in fact, The Cool over and over on the intro of The Cool. And he’s such a pretentious overrated fuck, and that was a particularly pretentious moment, so anything that reminds me of that… yeah, not so much.
November 9th, 2008 at 10:37 am
dope ass album. dope ass video. nuff said.
November 11th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
for a different version (I’d say better) of that same beat from the second half of the track, check out the song called “featuring phat kat” on dilla’s “welcome 2 detroit,” its that jazzy mellow smooth shit!