M-Rock “The Best of A Tribe Called Quest”

M-Rock, who’s Kanye mix was one of Heavy’s most popular downloads, has oh so graciously cued up another mixtape, this time featuring one of the all-time greats, Tribe Called Quest. About this mix M-Rock says:

“I’m the biggest Tribe fan so it brings me a lot of pleasure to drop this mix. I haven’t followed their solo acts much, but I watched them like a hawk growing up. In fact, the first piece of music I personally got my own hands on was their first album from the public library. I can talk all day about this group, its emotional for me in fact, because my fav. genre is hip-hop and after midnight marauders, hip-hop split into underground and pop, and I found both styles were trying too hard. Slum Village for example were so gangsta lyrically that it wasn’t believable, and on the other hand, Jay-Z was the same thing. Plus, hustling and bitches are not interesting (Tribe talk about women instead). Both Slum and Jay were hot but as for vibe and lyricism, I’m a lower-middle class kid and other than musical skill, I didn’t relate deeply to any of this shit.

However, I did relate to Tribe. Tribe’s music is honest, it doesn’t have commercial appeal and it succeeded because these brothers were close and very gifted, far from the average. They got paid as a group and didn’t fight over cheques. When they started falling off, the beats got mathematical and sample-free, they went soft as they brought J-Dilla in, who’s ironically one of the rawest producers ever. I can even hear Tip mentioning his friends during Phife’s verse in “1nce again”, an ignorant thing on his part, a lack of chemistry that was all over the last 2 albums. I relate to all of this because I fell off as a tablist, wasn’t a team player myself towards the end of that phase in my career. With that in mind, this mix is none of those wacker moments, it’s the straight rawness of Tribe, the group that wrote classic verses on the bus (buggin’ out) or kept verses from their childhood (Tip wrote Bonita at 14). Go watch the movie, by the way, it’s incredible. This mixtape took 3 weeks which is why M-Rock Mondays have been nothing, and now that it’s done, I hope you all really enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it.”

Get the mix below.

0 Comments