A Tribe Called Quest

Queens

Q-Tip and Phife Dawg met in church when they were two and grew up in St. Albans, Queens. Q-Tip began to DJ and make pause-tape beats at 12. At Murry Bergtraum High School in Manhattan he befriended Ali Shaheed Muhammad, and in 1985 the two started making demos. Phife Dawg joined them, then Jarobi White, and the group went by Crush Connection and later Quest. The Jungle Brothers, who went to the same school, supplied the final name in 1988. That year the group joined the Jungle Brothers, De La Soul, Queen Latifah and Monie Love in forming the Native Tongues collective.

Geffen gave them a demo deal in early 1989 but no recording contract. Offers came from several labels, and the group chose a modest deal with Jive, an independent rap label. People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm followed on 17 April 1990. It mixed jazz, funk, soul and rock samples with light, playful rhymes about safe sex, vegetarianism and growing up. The Source gave it five mics, the first album to earn the magazine's top rating. It gathered pace after the singles Bonita Applebum and Can I Kick It?, and went gold in 1996.

Jazz and bass

A month after the debut Phife Dawg learned he was diabetic and thought about leaving. He and Q-Tip agreed that he would take a larger part, and The Low End Theory, released on 24 September 1991, built its sound on their exchanges. Q-Tip stripped the music back to vocals, drums and bass, with Ron Carter on double bass for one song and engineer Bob Power clearing the noise from the samples. Jarobi White left during the sessions to study cooking. The singles were Check the Rhime, Jazz (We've Got) and Scenario, the last of which brought Busta Rhymes to wide attention. The album peaked at 45 on the Billboard 200 and went gold in February 1992. In 2020 Rolling Stone ranked it number 43 on its list of the 500 greatest albums.

Midnight Marauders arrived on 9 November 1993 with a grittier, funkier sound. It reached number eight, and "Award Tour" became the group's highest-charting single, at 47 on the Hot 100. Award Tour and Electric Relaxation were the hits. The album went platinum in January 1995.

The Ummah and the split

At the 1994 Lollapalooza tour Q-Tip met the Detroit producer Jay Dee, and with Muhammad formed a production unit called The Ummah that made the next two albums. Beats, Rhymes and Life (1996) debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and sounded darker than what came before. Phife Dawg had moved to Atlanta, Q-Tip had converted to Islam, and Phife later said the chemistry was dead. The Love Movement followed on 29 September 1998, announced a month earlier as the last album, and the group cited frustration with Jive. They reunited as a touring act in 2006, partly to help Phife Dawg with his medical expenses. Michael Rapaport's 2011 documentary Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest told the story of the group's tensions.

The last record

On 13 November 2015 the group played The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, set their differences aside and decided to record a new album in secret. Q-Tip and Phife Dawg spent four months on it in Q-Tip's home studio in New Jersey, with Muhammad away producing the Luke Cage soundtrack. Phife Dawg died on 22 March 2016 from complications of diabetes. Q-Tip finished We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service, which came out on 11 November 2016 and debuted at number one. The group played Saturday Night Live the next day in front of a mural of Phife Dawg, won the Brit Award for International Group in 2017, and gave their last concert at Bestival in Dorset on 9 September 2017.

All six albums are certified gold or platinum. In 2022 The Low End Theory was chosen for the Library of Congress National Recording Registry, and in 2024 the group entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.