Whoa… Pete Rosenburg and Cypha Sounds just dropped an off the cuff Juan Epstein episode featuring none other than Q-Tip. Conversations about Bob Power, house fires, and lost recordings…
Note: Q-Tip did the beats for the first three A Tribe Called Quest Albums!!!
Download it now via Rosenberg Radio.
I’ve heard the thing about Q-Tip doing the beats for Tribe a lot lately. I had no idea until recently, and I don’t know why I haven’t heard about it until then. If it’s true, Q-Tip is a beast, the beats on Tribe’s first few albums were better than either Tip or Phife’s rapping. And if Tip made all of those beats and was basically the lead MC for Tribe, he’s one of the tops of all time.
If he just contributed his verses and the beats aren’t his…then that’s not nearly as impressive.
So what did DJ Muhammad do? there weren’t that many cuts/scratches on their songs, I always assumed he did the beats. Crazy
Q- tip and j dilla had a production company together. They formed the company sometime between tribe’s third and fourth album I think.
Yeah, that’s ‘the Ummah’, it also included Muhammad. That was for their 4th and 5th albums, I always assumed that the beats fell off on those albums BECAUSE Q-Tip got into the production game, but now I don’t know why, if Tip was doing the beats all along.