1999 seems like a lifetime ago: Clinton was still President, DMX was popular, Ghostface Killah only had one solo album, and you could still listen to Biggie's "blow up like the World Trade" line in "Juicy" without cringing. Maybe you'll also remember it as the year A Tribe Called Quest's Q-Tip came out with his solo debut, Amplified, which pushed his bohemian rap a bit further upscale into champagne sleekness and drew a lot of "pop sellout" accusations from people who'd eventually wind up mourning co-producer J Dilla six and a half years later. Still, Amplified has aged pretty damn well, as predicted by Kris Ex, whose prescient Rolling Stone review called it "music that's gonna represent laid-back hip-hop two minutes into the future."
But that's been damn near it from Tip on the new-release front. 2002's Kamaal the Abstract was a drastic 180 from Amplified's conscious-player style towards neo-soul/jazz fusion light on actual rapping, and Arista thought it was too leftfield to release-- one year before they let André 3000's half of the new OutKast album drop the same M.O. onto an unsuspecting world. A couple of years later, Tip put together a more cohesive, head-nod-worthy return to lyricism, Open, that Arista didn't "get" either-- so he shopped it to Universal/Motown, reconfigured it as Relive the Moment and later Live at the Renaissance, and saw that get shelved, too (though a number of promos were pressed and shipped in 2006). It was about that time that A Tribe Called Quest held some much-geeked-over reunion shows, which meant that the idea of Q-Tip as a solo artist went on the back burner.
And so it's after that ridiculously long and convoluted voyage that I'm happy to declare The Renaissance-- a mostly new, tight refining of everything Q-Tip's done in his attempts to break his solo sophomore jinx-- the album people were spending the last nine years hoping he'd make. It features the deep, smooth neo-soul-tinged production from Amplified and final Tribe record The Love Movement (complete with a post-mortem Dilla contribution for a bit of that Ummah feel), pushes it simultaneously outwards towards both classic boom-bap and fusion experimentalism, and signals a welcome return of that familiar elastic, swing-cadence voice dropping jewels on the mic.
Maybe the first thing you'll notice is the mood: Q-Tip sounds enthusiastic and vibrant where many other aging conscious rappers have been playing it tense or guarded. This album shows a man infatuated with love and life without sounding maudlin: "Gettin' Up", produced by Q-Tip, takes an old early 1970s Black Ivory single, makes it gleam with modern sheen and lets Tip loose on the kind of love jones you'd expect from a man with 15 years' worth of relationship experience and maturation since "Electric Relaxation". The love-and-war soldier's story "We Fight/We Love" and the abstract sociological breakdown of "Manwomanboogie" couch things in conflict and struggle, but there's always some glimmer of hope and humanity at the core. He even sounds diplomatic when he's being accusatory and frustrated with a lover, as he does on "You": Despite the communication breakdowns, suspicion of infidelity, and admission that all the blame rests on the other party, he still concludes it with a potential reconciliatory gesture: "We'll make amends if you admit it/ We can ascend if you're committed/ Your heart, is it in it?" And when he extends that gratitude and love towards his profession, modestly reaffirming his place in hip-hop in "Johnny Is Dead" or rattling off a catchy chronological list of legends in "Life Is Better", his passion is infectious.
Most of The Renaissance's appeal owes to its mellow, welcoming tone-- maybe a bit more aspiring-Stevie than fist-pumping "Scenario"-memorizers might prefer-- but its production has a lot of kick to it: There's a sly reworking of Can's jittery, restless Krautfunk song "Aspectacle" in "Manwomanboogie", a classic-style no-nonsense butt-moving soul jazz groove in "Official", propulsive funk fusion guitar riffs on "Johnny Is Dead", and rave synths on "Shaka" that sound like Kanye's "Flashing Lights" switched from wistful to triumphant.
And the Abstract still knows how to amp a listener up on the mic, too. "Dance on Glass" is the lyrical highlight of the album: it starts out with an unaccompanied verse that addresses the whole state-of-rap argument with a veteran's wisdom, but Tip keeps going a cappella for an entire minute, dropping lyric after acrobatic lyric in his bouncy voice, building tension to the point where you're split between anticipation for the beat to drop and the feeling you wouldn't mind if it never did. (Then the beat does drop, and it sounds like People's Instinctive Travels... deep cut "Rhythm (Devoted to the Art of Moving Butts)" gone space-age. That works.) There's also the two-part "Move", produced by Dilla, which has an agitated Tip bucking the industry and calling out "cold grits without the hot sauce" MCs over a hacked-up, downpitched chunk of the Jackson 5's "Dancing Machine" before settling down just enough to drop life-story knowledge over whirring Moogs and concrete funk breaks.
If there's any weakness to the album, it's that Tip spends a fair amount of time on hook duty-- at least when he's not relinquishing it to a silky Raphael Saadiq, a ghostly-sounding D'Angelo, or a just-there Norah Jones. And even if his voice is a welcome presence after all these years, it's a bit odd to hear a Q-Tip album where he's literally the only dude rapping on it. But it's hard to complain too much about such a brighter-day kind of record, and it feels like the perfect album at the perfect time-- released on Election Day, appropriately enough, as the ideal soundtrack for Barack Obama winning the presidency. It says a lot that Tip alludes to Midnight Marauders more than once and, rather than a cheap reminder of what used to be, he leaves you glad he's still holding that same spirit.
