Returning to a sequence of innovative hip hop, two tracks that span the career one of the genre's most revered groups, from 1991's album The Low End Theory to 2016's We Got It From Here … Thank You 4 Your Service, with a timely riposte to all things wrong in the age of Donald Trump. The first is the opener of the Theory album, in which Q-Tip sets out the stall for their whole philosophy, and describes how music's influence spans the ages, from jazz coming through to hip hop, to Bobby Brown copying Michael Jackson. The track pays homage to Afrika Bambaataa also samples from past heroes, Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers with A Chant For Bu (1973), the drums from The Soil I Tilled For You by The Shades of Brown (1970), and an excerpt, for the middle eight, of The Last Poets' Time Is Running Out (1970):
Back in the days when I was a teenager
Before I had status and before I had a pager
You could find the Abstract listening to hip hop
My pops used to say, it reminded him of Bebop
I said, "Well, daddy don't you know that things go in cycles
Way that Bobby Brown is just amping like Michael"
It's all expected, things are for the looking
If you got the money, Quest is for the booking
Come on everybody, let's get with the fly mode
Still got room on the truckload of black boom
Listen to the rhymes, then get a mental picture
Of this black man, and black woman fixture
Why do I say that, cos I gotta speak the truth, man
Doing what we feel for the music is the proof and
Planted on the ground, the act is so together
Bona fide strong, you need leverage to sever
The unit, yes the unit, yes the unit called the jazz is
Delivering each year an LP filled with street goods
You can find it on your rack in your record store
If you get the record, say your thoughts are adored
And appreciated, cause we're ever so glad we made it
We work hard, so we gotta thank God
Dishing out the plastic, do the dance till you're spastic
If you diss... it gets drastic
Listen to the rhyme, cause it's time to make gravy
If it moves your booty, then shake, shake it baby
All the way to Africa a.k.a the Motherland
Stick out the left, then I'll ask for the other hand
That's the right hand, Black man
Only if you are noted as my man
If I get the credit, then I think I deserve it
If you fake moves, don't fix your mouth to word it
Get in the zone of positivity, not negativity
Cos we gotta strive for longevity
If you botch up, what's in that [ass]
(What?) A pair of Nikes size ten-and-a-half
[Hook]
We gotta make moves (words)
Never, ever, ever could we fake moves (come on, come on)
We gotta make moves (words) …
[Middle Eight - The Last Poets)
Time, time is a ship on a merciless sea
Drifting toward an average of nothingness
Until it can be retarded for its own destiny
Time is an inanimate object
Praying and praying and praying with no justification for relief
Time is dancing, boogalooing away all memories of past
We The People, in reference to the famous presidential phrase, addresses the new crisis in American society and politics leaning heavily to the right, with a whole new wave of white supremacists influencing the Trump White House. The ironic chorus says it all, and what's less known is the drum beat is sampled from a 1970 song by Black Sabbath – Behind The Wall of Sleep. The whole album was recorded just before shock death of the group's rapper Phife Dawg, but happily his legacy is still present, and during a performance at the 2017 Grammy Awards, in which Muslim women and other ethnic minorities joined the stage the rest of the band raised their fists in salute when his rap was played out. Political unity and music performed in the best possible way:
{Q-Tip]
We don't believe you 'cause we the people
Are still here in the rear, ayo, we don't need you
You in the killing-off-good-young-nigga mood
When we get hungry we eat the same fucking food
The ramen noodle
Your simple voodoo is so maniacal, we're liable to pull a juju
The irony is that this bad bitch in my lap
She don't love me, she make money, she don't study that
She gon' give it to me, ain't gon' tell me run it back
She gon' take the brain to wetter plains, she spit on that
The doors have signs with, don't try to rhyme with
VH1 has a show that you can waste your time with
Guilty pleasures take the edge off reality
And for a salary I'd probably do that shit sporadically
The OG Gucci boots are smitten with iguanas
The IRS piranha see a nigga gettin' commas
Niggas in the hood living in a fishbowl
Gentrify here, now it's not a shit hole
Trendsetter, I know, my shit's cold
Ain't settling because I ain't so bold but ay
[Hook: Q-Tip]
All you Black folks, you must go
All you Mexicans, you must go
And all you poor folks, you must go
Muslims and gays, boy, we hate your ways
So all you bad folks, you must go
[Bridge: Phife Dawg & Q-Tip]
The fog and the smog of news media that logs
False narratives of Gods that came up against the odds
We're not just nigga rappers with the bars
It's kismet that we're cosmic with the stars
[Verse 2: Phife Dawg]
You bastards overlooking street art
Better yet, street smarts but you keep us off the charts
So motherfuck your numbers and your statisticians
Fuck y'all know about true competition?
That's like a AL pitcher on deck talking about he hittin'
The only one who's hitting are the ones that's currently spittin'
We got your missy smitten rubbing on her little kitten
Dreaming of a world that's equal for women with no division
Boy, I tell you that's vision
Like Tony Romo when he hitting Witten
The Tribe be the best in they division
Shaheed Muhammad cut it with precision
Who can come back years later, still hit the shot?
Still them tryna move we off the fucking block
Babylon, bloodclaat
Two pon yuh headtop
[Hook: Q-Tip]
All you Black folks, you must go
All you Mexicans, you must go
And all you poor folks, you must go
Muslims and gays, boy, we hate your ways
So all you bad folks, you must go
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