Q-Tip confirms the hip-hop icons’ first album in 18 years.
A Tribe Called Quest’s sixth album is due to arrive in just two weeks. Q-Tip posted a handwritten letter on Facebook last night explaining that the original members had started work on the album following their appearance on The Tonight Show a year ago – their first TV performance in 18 years.
“The energy on stage that night was one we hadn’t experienced together in some time,” he recalled, noting that the performance was the night of the terror attack at the Bataclan in Paris. “As we left 30 Rock I felt the need, we all did, to get back to the studio and start that cook up!! SO WE GOT TO IT!!”
The original members, plus Busta Rhymes and Consequence, finished the album together this year following the death of Phife Dawg in March.
“It was coming together nicely and as you may know we lost our brother may god rest his soul on March 22nd. But he left us with the blueprint of what we had to do.”
The album is due out on November 11. Read the Facebook post in full.
L.A. Reid had previously spilled the beans on the release in an interview with Rap Radar’s Elliott Wilson and Brian “B.Dot” Miller.
“You know what I’m excited about though? A Tribe Called Quest. [Epic Records] has A Tribe Called Quest album coming,” Reid announced, ducking a question about Outkast. “It’s an album that [the members] recorded before Phife passed away. I’m really happy about it, man. It’s really something special. It’s one of the things I’m most excited about out of everything we’re working on.”
“Phife is there, the whole group: Jarobi, the entire group, everybody. It’s great too,” Reid clarified. “It’s coming very soon, it’ll be [A Tribe Called Quest’s] first album in 18 years.”
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