New Q-Tip (A Tribe Called Quest) new album, gig info

jmc

Don't have the confirmed release date for the album yet. More good news is that he's doing a lot of Tribe stuff in his live shows as well!

Q-TIP

In his third solo album, Q-Tip demonstrates his vision for music that fuses his trademark rhymes and hip-hop sensibility…with live musicians. The result: a free form blend of rock, jazz and hip-hop with innovative lyrics and musical styling—what Q-Tip calls—OPEN.

“I’ve always had this idea of doing something musical with a band and yet still keeping it hip-hop,” he reveals. “I’ve been going in this direction for a while where I’m just tearing everything down and starting all over again kinda blind. The musical colors I’m doing in OPEN aren’t really in hip-hop right now, or even in America.”

OPEN isn’t a posse-packed affair, with rappers piling detached rhymes over a mechanical track. The record was made organically with a band Q-Tip’s been working with for nearly two years—guitarist Kirk Rosenwinkle, bassist Derrick Hodge, drummer Mark Colenburg and pianist James Hurt.

When the band convened at Q-Tip’s New Jersey recording studio “and just jammed,” OPEN began to take shape. Tip recalls fondly: “I’d play a piece on piano and they’d take it and we’d blow it out together. Somebody would bring something in and we’d just work the song out. There was no agenda about the sessions other than to make the songs solid.”

Internationally acclaimed for his rhyme skills, Q-Tip is also developing himself as a singer. “I see myself as a singer; I rhyme like a singer; I think like a singer. So now when I have the urge to do it, I can go and get the job done. For me, singing is another tool in the box, and on this record I rhyme on everything and sing on everything…I’m my own Kelis and my own Missy Elliott!”

OPEN does have a few surprise appearances, from Andre 300 from OutKast to D’Angelo and Common.

With OPEN completed, Q-Tip looks forward to getting back onstage. He has both domestic and international tours planned for 2004. “I haven’t done a show since Tribe,” he says regretfully. “I did a couple of radio dates with ‘Vivrant Thing,’ but this will be my first real tour in six or seven years. I miss performing so much.”

“When I go out, there will be no DJ, just me and my band,” he points out. “We’re gonna do a lot of Tribe material and it’ll sound like it; this won’t be one of those ‘Unplugged’ things where nothing sounds like the record. With my band, I wanna make sure I have all the sounds and energy of hip-hop. With the technology we have today, I can have a live-band feel and still have the beats.”

As part of A Tribe Called Quest Q-Tip rapped on, co-wrote and produced a string of landmark albums, beginning with People’s Instinctive Travels And The Paths of Rhythm in 1990. The trio followed up with The Low End Theory (1991), Midnight Marauders (1993), Beats, Rhymes And Life (1996) and The Love Movement (1998).

After Tribe broke up Q-Tip had a Top 10 hit with “Vivrant Thing,” from Amplified, his 1999 solo debut (a Top 5 R&B/Hip-Hop album that also spawned the hit “Breathe And Stop”)


SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY

A Tribe Called Quest:

People’s Instinctive Travels And The Paths of Rhythm, Jive, 1990.
The Low End Theory, Jive, 1991.
Midnight Marauders, Jive, 1993.
Beats, Rhymes And Life, Jive, 1996.
The Love Movement, Jive, 1998.

As A Solo Artist:
Amplified, Arista, 1998.
OPEN, DreamWorks, 2004.


Q-TIP
Live at The Ambassador in Dublin on July 7th.

Makaveli

I saw an interview with him on MTV Base or VH1 (can't remember) and he mentioned the possibility of a new Tribe album.

pigeoncrumb

My mom used to be q-tips lawyer. I met him and Nicole Kidman when they were dating.

Makaveli

I thought it was Lenny Kravitz that went out with Nicole Kidman?
Did she go out with Q-Tip too?

pigeoncrumb

apparently.

Makaveli

What a hoe.

pigeoncrumb

lol, and a bad actress too