“The chemistry was dead, shot,” he confirmed later on in Michael Rapaport’s 2011 documentary Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest. “I started feelin’ like I didn’t fit in any more,” he told Linda Burton in 2006.
When Tip and Muhammad formed production group The Ummah with a Detroit up-and-comer who’d later go by the name J Dilla, Phife had a good reason to assume that the group was done. Following that album’s commercial success, Q-Tip (now Kamaal the Abstract) and Ali Shaheed Muhammad converted to Islam, leaving Phife Dawg feeling increasingly excluded as he relocated from New York to Atlanta. Where some may have predicted or anticipated more good-times vibes along the lines of Midnight Marauders, instead came the product of an altogether different group, in an evolved hip-hop landscape. Elsewhere, Tribe broke character to bemoan the state of contemporary rap (‘Phony Rappers’), a track that played to their base but revealed a fraying connection to the youth. A capable if not breathtaking rapper, Consequence appeared throughout the record, even replacing Phife on the album version of stand-out single ‘Stressed Out’. Phife Dawg, who died earlier this year, found himself in an awkward position, often having to trade rhymes with Q-Tip’s cousin Consequence instead of Tip himself. Beats, Rhymes and Life saw a sudden leap from that winning blueprint. Phife Dawg, Q-Tip and Ali Shaheed Muhammad had blown out of St Albans anonymity with a fresh alchemy of jazzy samples, observant, socially aware rhymes and vivid Afrocentric themes. Each Tribe album to this point had been innovative in its own right, setting new standards for sampling, production and lyricism. Twenty years on, the album’s dismissal feels unfair. Roots drummer Questlove summed up the feeling in a 1998 article for The Source: “By this time most attitudes were, ‘if Tribe ain’t moving the world with each release, then we won’t stand for nothing less.’” On point all the time? Guess not, shrugged many fans and critics.
KEEP IT MOVING TRIBE CALLED QUEST CRACKED
Three years of ceaseless touring had cracked the sunny demeanour of their previous outings, replacing it with an unfamiliar darkness. Then came Beats, Rhymes and Life, their first real disappointment. Midnight Marauders then sealed their status in 1993 – while it didn’t achieve the breathless praise of its predecessor, it took them to the top of the Billboard charts. Its follow-up, 1991’s acclaimed The Low End Theory was even more ambitious, with critics and fans praising its innovative fusion of jazz and rap.
People’s Instinctive Travels… was a game changer, the album that cemented an experimental sound that would dominate ’90s hip-hop. Queens rap trio A Tribe Called Quest had three impeccable records under their belts before their fourth crash-landed that summer. In 1996 New York, this was a familiar couplet and its creators a chart-topping phenomenon. But as Jesse Bernard argues, its blend of realness, reinvention and subtle afrofuturism make it a misunderstood classic. 20 years ago, they released Beats, Rhymes and Life and disappointed fans who couldn’t come to terms with its new flavor and darker tone. Their catalogue isn’t without its blemishes however. A Tribe Called Quest are widely hailed as one of the greatest rap acts of all time.
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