JumpinJack AJ

I noticed the album on Pandora ages ago. I just hadn't gotten to post about it. It seems like RCA must have compiled this? I wish they'd official release it for the fans. I have all of the remixes off various versions of the singles, imports, and promos, but I'd love to buy a new JJ+FP album. http://www.pandora.com/dj-jazzy-jeff-fresh-prince

DE LA SOUL + LITTLE DRAGON - Drawn The Anonymous Nobody (2016)

Okay, the title of this post is misleading; but not. lol https://m.styleweekly.com/richmond/a-grammy-award-winning-artist-is-working-on-new-album-at-richmonds-jail/Content?oid=3492677 A Grammy Award-Winning Artist Is Working on New Album at Richmond’s Jail by Jackie Kruszewski May 30, 2017 Scott Elmquist A film crew follows Speech, upper right, of Arrested Development, beside Garland Carr during a call-and-response session at the Richmond City Justice Center. Garland Carr’s voice and guitar playing fill a small recording studio, partially lined with foam and egg cartons, with the command of a seasoned performer. The 33-year-old is singing an original song he recently recorded with Speech, the Grammy-Award winning artist behind hip-hop group Arrested Development. “Freedom wind, blow me away,” Carr sings. “I don’t feel so free today.” It has the makings of a country-folk hit and the tall, tattooed Carr a country singer. But today he’s in a blue jumpsuit and Velcro shoes, waiting for a June court hearing, an inmate at the Richmond City Justice Center. Speech, the stage name of Todd Thomas, is in Richmond recording Arrested Development’s next album at the jail. He’s using the studio, which has been there since the jail opened in 2014, but mostly he’s there for the talent and inspiration. “When we got here, I didn’t know how talented or untalented any of the residents were going to be,” he says. “It’s been part of the journey to really interact with them and learn how talented they are. I’ve just been floored by it.” Speech, 48, says they’ve created nine original songs so far — in a variety of styles, from different musicians in jail. He’ll edit and add choir music to some tracks back in Atlanta, where he’s based. “The opportunity to be able to create music and interact … that will help people to understand the humanity, the creativity, the repentance, the heart of people in jail,” he says. “And help people understand that these are humans, people that are going through a lot of stuff. And this music is where they express it.” Carr, who grew up in Mechanicsville, says he has a musical family and dabbled in performance, but the opportunity to collaborate with Speech has forced him outside of his comfort zone. “I squandered my talent out there,” he says. “I just had other things on my mind.” He says Speech has inspired him to learn the technical side of recording, on which Carr struggled to focus. Speech also has donated updated recording software since arriving. “With Garland, it’s been about not getting in the way,” Speech says. “He’s got great songs and great ideas. I let him do what he does and just help out in any way I can.” “You came through in a clutch with the harmonies today,” Carr says. “Hey, that’s what I do,” Speech says. A film crew from Resonant Pictures of Brooklyn, New York, has been following these interactions for a documentary about the making of the album. It trails Speech through the jail, setting up scenes with a narrative and purpose. Adam Barton of Resonant says the goal is to have it completed next year. Both Speech and Barton credit a 2015 CNN segment about the jail’s father-daughter dance for bringing Richmond to their attention. Speech says he’s performed here many times, but this is his first time really getting to know Richmond. Last week, Sheriff C.T. Woody showed Speech around neighborhoods — Byrd Park, Jackson Ward, Blackwell, Creighton and Fairfield courts — a tour that Speech calls inspiring. “Just to see the city from his eyes,” he says, “that was very special.” Speech spent a night in the jail, too, to understand the incarcerated lives of his musical collaborators. “It was unforgettable — the emotional detachment, the feeling I felt in there, which I’d never felt in my life,” he says. “I don’t plan to feel it again.” Woody checked on him several times that morning and jokes that Speech took too long in the shower. “I told him he owed me for the water bill,” Woody says, laughing. “I think he was trying to wash all those feelings away.” Speech also was on hand May 16 for the housewarming of a home in Manchester for former jail residents. He performed from the porch, and gave a beat for another performance by an alumnus of the jail’s recovery program. The album has no release date yet, Speech says, but he’ll return to Richmond for follow-ups later this year — with the rest of Arrested Development at some point — and Resonant Pictures will continue to track the album’s creation. Speech is met with applause when he enters a common space at the jail to lead a chorus of 22 men in a call-and-response hymn. “I want to lay my burden down,” Carr sings. He and Speech conduct the swaying men, their voices reverberating off the metal and concrete. Speech says he hopes his collaborators such as Carr will continue to make music when they’re out. “The straight and narrow — it’s the only path for me,” Carr says. “I feel like I woke up from a long sleep.” Carr adds that, for possibly the first time in his life, he feels like his priorities are lined up. “I’ve got a lot energy,” he says. “If I dedicate it to something negative, man things go really far negative. But if I dedicate it to something positive, sky’s the limit.” S

I just recently started getting into this group. Some of their stuff is excellent.

DRU HILL - Change (2016)

I watched a lot of MTV back then, and I never saw this commercial. I get the impression it didn't get played much.

Here's an excellent article that talks about Tribe's reunion on the Tonight Show, how it lead to the album, the dynamic of the group, and how the album developed. It has quotes from Q-Tip, Jarobi, Busta Rhymes, and the group's family and crew. For some reason the forum wouldn't let me cut and paste it all here, so check the link... http://www.okayplayer.com/news/secret-history-a-tribe-called-quest-we-got-it-from-here-thank-you-for-your-service.html

Yeah, I've posted about them before. This new album is the only thing that has occasionally pulled me away from the new A Tribe Called Quest album over the last few days.

THIS ALBUM IS DOPE!! I LOVE IT!!! Here's a great read... http://www.villagevoice.com/music/a-tribe-called-quests-soundtrack-to-the-resistance-9345894?utm_content=bufferb7a34&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer A Tribe Called Quest's Soundtrack to the Resistance Tuesday, November 15, 2016 at 12 p.m. By Michael A. Gonzales Q-Tip Gavin Bond It was the night after the doomsday election, and the renowned hip-hop band A Tribe Called Quest had turned back the clock to throw an old-school industry jam like the ones urban record labels used to do in the Bill Clinton Nineties. At MoMA P.S.1 — located in the Tribe's home borough of Queens, where rappers Q-Tip, Phife Dawg, and Jarobi White first met when they were Linden Boulevard boys attending the same Seventh-Day Adventist church — a dense crowd gathered to sip custom cocktails named after vintage Tribe tracks like "Bonita Applebum" and "Electric Relaxation" and listen to the group's first album in eighteen years, We Got It From Here...Thank You 4 Your Service. A few hours beforehand, chilling in the backstage area, dressed stylishly in jeans, black shirt, and a crisp peacoat, Q-Tip looks sharp. Smiling broadly, he greets old friends with brotherly hugs and chats with a few fans who work at the museum. This will be a night tinged with celebration and sadness. In March, Phife Dawg passed away from complications resulting from diabetes. He was 45. So while there's a buzz of excitement as Tip gets ready to preview tracks he's been working on for a year, there's something else as well. Tip has yesterday's election results on his mind, like every other New Yorker wandering the streets mumbling, "I can't believe Trump won." He talks about the way Trump "was able to rile up disgruntled, disenfranchised white males, and their white wives and kids, bringing them to rallies talking about 'the good old days.' You study history and all the great countries have their great time and then go out of favor. "With Trump being elected president, we have to look at where we are with race in this country," Tip says. "Not just a conversation, but actions that are going to instill knowledge and healing. I wish we could be really solutions-oriented in our conversation before there is more bloodshed on the streets." It's almost hard to believe that the same brothers who were damn near hippies in their youth — sporting dashikis in the late Eighties alongside De La Soul as part of the Afrocentric Native Tongues posse — could now be viewed as aural agitators making music in the tradition of Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, and Public Enemy. But that's just what the crowd at P.S.1 finds, once the sound system starts cracking with the first tracks from We Got It From Here. If you've been sleeping, this is the record to get you woke. The first song, "The Space Program," is a catchy anti-Afrofuturist cut that declares, "Ain't no space program for niggas." The second track, the single "We the People," has the kind of beat ATCQ pioneered two decades ago — laid-back and thundering at the same moment — but it's charged with more urgency and fire than they've ever displayed before. It talks of the "fog and the smog of news media" and "false narratives." The chorus, sung by Tip, lays bare the chilling reality of a Trump rally: "All you black folks, you must go/All you Mexicans, you must go/And all you poor folks, you must go." Tip's longtime friend Gary Harris, who blogs about the music industry at Insideplaya and works alongside Tip at Beats 1 show Abstract Radio on Apple Music, describes We Got It From Here as "very Black Lives Matter." Think of these sixteen tracks as part of a musical movement that addresses politics in ways both direct and subtle, a movement that has been very much a part of Tip's life over the past two years, during which time he's worked on not just We Got It From Here, but two other crucial releases infused with the spirit of BLM: D'Angelo's third album, Black Messiah, and Solange's recent A Seat at the Table. Tip co-produced "Ain't That Easy" and "Sugah Daddy" for D'Angelo, and co-produced and appears on Solange's "Borderline (An Ode to Self Care)," a love groove that imagines the bedroom as a temporary refuge from the "war outside these walls." You could say the records Tip has been working on are both a broadcast system and a sanctuary — an alert and a relief. Though he has a more modest view. "We make music, beat on drums, and make raps," he says. "This record definitely has a certain spirit attached that is something else that is interesting. For now, we're going to pray and hope for the best." Jarobi Gavin Bond They were friends from childhood. Phife Dawg (born Malik Isaac Taylor) attended grammar school with Q-Tip (born Jonathan Davis). Jarobi White lived near Phife's grandmother's house in St. Albans, Queens. In 1979, when the boys were still in grade school, "Rapper's Delight" by the Sugarhill Gang changed their lives. "That was what kicked it off," Phife's mother, Cheryl Boyce-Taylor, says. "After that, the idea started to get bigger in his head. He always had a lot of dreams, and one of them was that he and Q-Tip could do it too." Five or six years after "Rapper's Delight," local Queens street-corner kids like Run-D.M.C. and L.L. Cool J transformed from homegrown talents into international superstars, which only encouraged Phife and his friends — now including DJ Ali Shaheed Muhammad. "His father and I let him go to the studio with Q-Tip, Jarobi, and Ali, because we knew it was better than him being in the streets," Boyce-Taylor says. The sound and spirit they developed in the studio emerged as an alternative to the harder hip-hop of the late Eighties/early Nineties — the first records from the Native Tongues collective arrived shortly after N.W.A's Straight Outta Compton. Q-Tip made his first appearance, in 1988, on the Jungle Brothers' track "Black Is Black," which he followed up in 1990 with a verse on De La Soul's bouncy single "Buddy." ATCQ were thought of as nonthreatening teenage bohemians who merely wanted to have fun on their own terms. But they were also musical obsessives who would move the sound of hip-hop in new directions. On their 1990 debut for Jive Records, People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm, Tribe built their sound on jazzy loops sampled from records on the CTI and Blue Note labels that Q-Tip had copped from his late father's extensive collection. While most of their peers were still flipping the sounds of James Brown's funky drummers and basslines from the P-Funk catalog, Tribe were bouncing to less traveled beats. "They single-handedly put hip-hop on their backs and brought it to another level," recalls former Jive CEO Barry Weiss. Although Jive's roster would later include the Backstreet Boys, *NSync, and Britney Spears, in the late Eighties the label was an r&b/hip-hop powerhouse, with Billy Ocean, Kool Moe Dee, and Boogie Down Productions among its stars. "When Tribe's second album, Low End Theory, came into the office, that was when Phife really emerged as a force to be reckoned with," Weiss says. "He blew up when we put out the single 'Check the Rhime' — that record exploded. There was a great yin and yang between him and Tip. Phife helped keep the group grounded. But, music-wise, no one sounded like Tribe." "Before Tribe or Gang Starr, hip-hop was kind of stiff," Muhammad explained to crate-diggers' bible Wax Poetics in 2010. "I don't mean stiff in a bad way, but the music we created just had a different kind of movement and flow to it. Be it the basslines, chord structures, or the different time signatures, the music always moved." Q-Tip was constantly on the hunt for ways of changing up that movement. "There were times when I would walk into a record store and see Tip sitting on the floor with his glasses on, going through albums, looking for beats," says Pete Rock, the superstar producer who rose to fame around the same time as ATCQ. "I was like, 'This guy is serious.' Being around them made me step up and become even more serious than I was." It made everyone else more serious about their music as well. Tribe would become the premier hip-hop auteurs of their generation with the game-changing Low End Theory (1991) and Midnight Marauders (1993). "Those albums gave birth to neo-everything," says Kierna Mayo, the former editor-in-chief of Ebony, now at the digital network Interactive One, who has known Tip and Ali since their high school days at Murry Bergtraum High School in Lower Manhattan back in the Eighties. "That entire class of D'Angelo, Erykah Badu, Maxwell, and Lauryn Hill — and moving on to André 3000, Kanye West, and Talib Kweli — everything that is left of everything begins with Tribe." (Fittingly, West, Kweli, and André all make cameos on We Got It From Here.) If Tip's obsession was sound, Phife's was slightly different. "With Phife, we connected with sports," says Rock. Calling himself the "five-foot assassin" as well as "a funky diabetic" (he'd been battling the disease since age nineteen), Phife was the everyman of the group. Anyone who knew him will tell you rapping and sports were his main passions. "As much as the Knicks didn't win, he was a fan to the end," says his mother. A poet and actress, she exposed her young son to the world of theater and verse, but it was his daddy and uncle who unleashed the sports beast. "The only thing he didn't watch, sports-related, was hockey." But soon a new passion emerged for Phife: After Midnight Marauders, Phife got married and moved to Atlanta. "He became more of a family man with his wife and son," his mother says. "He was married for eighteen years." Tribe went on to make two more records — Beats, Rhymes, and Life, in 1996, and The Love Movement, in 1998 — but as so often happens, what began as a labor of love turned into a source of anxiety. "It started being more about how successful a record was, how many spins it got at radio, and all that stupid **** that jades you," says Q-Tip. The group announced its split just before the release of The Love Movement. Though they continued to tour, there was a new dimension to their family vibe: They now fought like brothers. The 2011 documentary Beats, Rhymes, & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest caught them squabbling, though when they put it aside onstage the results were as impressive as ever. Busta Rhymes Gavin Bond Last November, Tribe reunited on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon to celebrate the 25th anniversary of People's Instinctive Travels. "When we did that show, that was the starting point," Q-Tip says. "I knew if we were connecting with that kind of energy in a performance, it would be easy to go back to the studio." "I thought the nigga was bull****ting about doing another album, but the next day he was still with it," Busta Rhymes recalled at the P.S.1 listening party. (Rhymes — who made appearances on the Tribe classics "Scenario" and "Oh My God" — has now officially joined Tribe as a part of the crew.) Phife, too, believed it was just wishful thinking. "He thought they might be able to make a five-song EP and that would be it," his mother laughs. "He never thought they'd have enough for a whole album." But over a year's time, the Tribesmen worked as a team at Tip's studio, the AbLab, in New Jersey. (Ab is short for Abstract, one of Q-Tip's many monikers.) Designed with his longtime engineer Blair Wells, the studio is filled with analog equipment, including a tape machine that once belonged to Frank Zappa and preamps used on records made by Jimi Hendrix, the Ramones, and Blondie. "That studio was Tip's dream project, and it took years to complete," says Consequence, Q-Tip's cousin and a rapper who appears along with Busta on the We Got It From Here track "Mobius." "I remember when that place was just wood." Tip, known for woodshedding with music, drew inspiration from an unlikely source. "I began listening to a lot of Stooges and early Iggy Pop solo albums," he says. "I just love it. I think you can hear the rock in our record too." He and Phife spoke at length about how to maintain Tribe's heritage without getting trapped by it. "We knew we had to keep the thread but also push it forward," says Tip. "With the beats, he was always quick to be like thumbs-up, thumbs-down. He was usually right dead on." Phife's manager, Dion "Rasta Roots" Liverpool, was with the rapper during every trip he made to the AbLab. "We'd fly up and stay at a hotel near Q-Tip's house," says Roots from his home in Atlanta. Phife needed dialysis three times a week to control his diabetes. He spent the rest of his time constructing We Got It From Here. "Every evening he'd go down to the house, and he and Tip would spend hours in there vibing and coming up with lines," Roots says. "Seeing them together in the studio joking, coming up with ideas, disagreeing, vibing, and trading vocals, it was pretty incredible. It was like watching a unicorn." "That **** was so much fun," says Tip. "We were like kids again." But just four months after Tip and Phife were reunited, on March 22, 2016, Phife died at his home. "I had seen him a few weeks before, so I was in total shock," says Pos from De La Soul, who has known the Tribe since they were all teenagers. "When it happened, we made our way to Tip's house in New Jersey. We cried together, hung out, and just celebrated our brother. It felt good knowing that Q-Tip and Phife had been in segue with one another and knocked out some great stuff. After all those years, Tip and Phife were finally in a good place with each other." Consequence Gavin Bond The day after the November 11 release of We Got It From Here, A Tribe Called Quest were the musical guest on an episode of Saturday Night Live hosted by Dave Chappelle. Introducing "We the People" under a banner bearing Phife's scowling mug, Q-Tip modified the hip-hop exhortation to throw your hands in the air. "If you looking at us, stand up, touch someone next to you," he told the viewing audience. "One fist in the air." Then, with his arm raised in a Black Power salute, he added, "We are all one. We are the people." The following Monday, Q-Tip reflected on the performance and how the political message of Tribe's new album had hit home. "When you are a citizen of this country and you see what's afoot, you could either not deal with it or deal with it," he said. "Our choice was the latter. But we also made a choice not to be heavy-handed, to still keep it in our own tongue. We certainly had good expectations, but none of us expected it would be like this." He paused and his thoughts went back to the state of things. "It's a trying moment. It's one of a heightened sense of desperation and unknowing. Climate collapsing, war, real shifts domestically with the past election. It's the polar opposite of what we've experienced the last eight years toward what we're looking forward to for the next four. All that has made people look at this record as a constellation, and it's humbling. We don't take this lightly." Tip said that a Tribe tour wasn't likely but wasn't impossible. "It's hard to think of that without Phife," he added. "But you can never say never." In any case, the message would continue. "I'm glad we are having this moment, but we are looking forward to others — whether it be Lauryn or André or Nas or D'Angelo — continuing to add dialogue and add their voices," he said. "Hip-hop is freedom. It's expression, it's revolutionary, it's evolved. It's bombastic. It's a place for us to thrive. A place to express." Gavin Bond

This is one of those posts were a lot of people will pass over it, or simply ignore it because it's new music by an unknown artist. Don't do that this time. Click the link below and give the songs a listen, because this is the best Hip-Hop album I've heard in years. I stumbled upon these guys a few years ago because Speech from Arrested Development produced a song for them. This is classic Hip-Hop with legit production and skilled emcees. Check it out here: http://automatic.bandcamp.com/album/marathon

I don't doubt that the album will be good. Here's the cover they have on their Facebook. I like it better than the previous one, though it's still underwhelming. It's the music that matters though.

A Tribe Called Quest Unveils Cover Art For Final Album As we creep closer and closer to A Tribe Called Quest‘s final outing, details of the long mythologized release are coming forth piece-by-piece. Yesterday in a New York Times profile piece helmed by the one and only Toure, we finally learned the name of the new album (and first in 18 years): We got it from Here… Thank You 4 Your service. In the same piece, the album’s star-studded roster was revealed, confirming the presence of all four tribesman along with helping hands from Andre 3000, Kendrick Lamar, Jack White and Elton John amongst others. Today we get our first look at the album’s cover art, courtesy of Complex. Those well traveled on the paths of rhythm will immediately notice the iconic Low End Theory figure kneeling in the bottom left corner, Tribe’s classic green-glow logo stamped at the top and then, oddly enough (and perhaps even poking fun at the times,) a naked woman taking a selfie of it all in the bottom right corner. There’s still no pre-order available for the final A Tribe Called Quest album, but We got it from Here… Thank You 4 Your service is slated to arrive next Friday, November 11th via Epic Records. Here’s hoping we get something in the way of a single ahead of the release. In the meantime, you can peep the album art below. http://www.okayplayer.com/news/heres-the-cover-art-for-a-tribe-called-quests-final-album.html

Common Blazes Through “Pyramids” on New ODB-Sampling Single (prod. Karriem Riggins) In just few more days, the world will finally be treated to the full script of Common‘s new album Black America Again. And while we’ve heard plenty in the way of politically-charged and romantic raps, today’s offering (likely our last before the album’s official release this Friday, November 4th) finds Com in mad-rapping mode, just in case you forgot how capable he is, over another slightly swung drum and synth spectacle from the legend, Karriem Riggins (who also samples the late ODB.) You can hear the latest offering from Common’s eleventh studio Black America Again down below along with the album’s full track listing. Pre-order your copy of the new record on iTunes today ahead Friday’s release. Black America Again Track List: 1. Joy And Peace (feat. Bilal) 2. Home (feat. Bilal) 3. Word From Moe Luv Interlude 4. Black America Again (feat. Stevie Wonder) 5. Love Star (feat. PJ) 6. On A Whim Interlude 7. Red Wine (feat. Syd & Elena) 8. Pyramids 9. A Moment In The Sun Interlude 10. Unfamiliar (feat. PJ) 11. A Bigger Picture Called Free (feat. Syd) 12. The Day Women Took Over (feat. BJ The Chicago Kid) 13. Rain (feat. John Legend) 14. Little Chicago Boy (feat. Tasha Cobbs) 15. Letter To The Free (feat. Bilal) http://www.okayplayer.com/news/common-pyramids-mp3.html

Herehttp://www.xxlmag.com/news/2016/11/andre-3000-kendrick-lamar-a-tribe-called-quest-new-we-got-it-from-here-thank-you-for-your-service-album/Andre 3000, Kendrick Lamar Featured on A Tribe Called Quest’s New Album ‘We Got It From Here, Thank You for Your Service’ By Ted Simmons November 2, 2016 12:38 PM SHARE TWEET EMAIL REDDIT EMAIL REDDIT Alberto E. Rodriguez / Ilya S. Savenok / Theo Wargo, Getty Images (3) Last week, Q-Tip made a major announcement in sharing that A Tribe Called Quest would be releasing their final album on Nov. 11, writing, “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.” Now, as that date approaches, more details of the album have come out, Q-Tip and Jarobi White speaking to the New York Times about what fans can expect from the record, which is titled We Got It From Here, Thank You for Your Service. According to the piece, all four Tribe members are features, as will be Andre 3000, Kendrick Lamar, Elton John, Jack White and Busta Rhymes. In the emotional Times piece, André 3000 credits Tip’s influence on major rappers today: “Tip’s kind of like the father of all of us, like me, Kanye, Pharrell. When you’re a kid, it’s kind of like, O.K., who am I going to be? Can I be Eazy-E? Nah. But Q-Tip? Yeah. He seems more like a common kind of person.” The process of making the album is also discussed, and it’s revealed that Phife was flying from Oakland to New Jersey to record the album with the other Tribe members. “Doing this album killed him,” says Jarobi. “And he was very happy to go out like that.” Back in April, Chris Rock posted a photo to Instagram of himself, Andre 3000, Jack White, Jarobi and more, saying they were working on Andre’s album, but it’s clear now based on the album features what was really going down. When asked about the photo and others taken at Q-Tip’s house that night, Queen Latifah said at the time, “I think it’s important for the hip-hop heads and the world to keep their eye on what’s coming out of this area in the coming months. Some good stuff happening.” We Got It From Here, Thank You for Your Service drops in nine days. Read More: Andre 3000, Kendrick Lamar Featured on A Tribe Called Quest’s ‘We Got It From Here, Thank You for Your Service’ Album - XXL | http://www.xxlmag.com/news/2016/11/andre-3000-kendrick-lamar-a-tribe-called-quest-new-we-got-it-from-here-thank-you-for-your-service-album/?trackback=tsmclip

NORAH JONES - Sunrise Feels Like Home (2004) I've always appreciated Norah Jones and owned her studio albums, but never really listened to her that much. In recent months, this girl has been a source of peace for me. Life kind of sucks at the moment, and she has kept me level headed.

Prayers for your family during this tough time. May you feel an unexplained peace and focus on the celebration that is life, rather than the loss.

A Tribe Called Quest’s Final Album Features Andre 3000, Kendrick Lamar, Jack White + More On November 11th, A Tribe Called Quest will release their final studio album, according to a heartfelt, handwritten note Q-Tip delivered last week. The announcement alone was enough to send the music world into a frenzy, but today new details arrive by way of a New York Times profile, written by the ever-intrepid Toure. First, the album has a name, We Got It From Here, Thank You for Your Service, approved by the late Phife Dawg. The piece also reveals a star-powered guest list for Tribe’s coup de grace, including Andre 3000, Kendrick Lamar, Jack White, Elton John and, of course, honorary tribesman, Busta Rhymes. The piece sheds light on how the group rallied following their Tonight Show performance late last year and recorded the entirety of the record in Tip’s home studio with no phoned-in verses from anyone, confirming the presence of all four members on their final record. The piece itself is more than worth your time and will surely invoke a strong emotional response. Again, the final A Tribe Called Quest, We Got It From Here, Thank You For Service, arrives via Epic Records on November 11th. We’ll have more details as they arrive. http://www.okayplayer.com/news/a-tribe-called-quests-final-album-features-andre-3000-kendrick-lamar-jack-white-more.html

A Tribe Called Quest Will Be Coming Out With A New Album Next Month A Tribe Called Quest will be coming out with a new album on November 11th, yes this November 11th, 2016. In case you didn’t catch that, I’ll repeat it: A Tribe Called Quest will be coming out with a new album on November 11th. Just one more time: A Tribe Called Quest will be coming out with a new album on November 11th. Yup, it’s really happening. Back in August L.A. Reid talked about how a Tribe album was in the works. And now we got some more confirmation. Q-Tip, in a post to Facebook, which you can read in full below, made the announcement along with giving some details to the album’s background. Q-Tip writes about how after the group’s performance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon late last year, they collectively felt the need to get back in the studio, so they did. The performance was their first on television in eighteen years. Watch it below. A few months later in March Phife Dawg passed, but not before leaving “the blueprint” for the group’s latest and what is to be their last album. Q-Tip also detailed that there will be features from the likes of Busta Rhymes and Consequence. Peep the message from Q-Tip below. http://www.okayplayer.com/news/a-tribe-called-quest-will-be-coming-out-with-a-new-album-next-month.html

Ummmm....what's up? This was on Eric B's official website and twitter. Rakim Rep Says Claims Of Reunion w/ Eric B. Are “Completely False” Photo by Michael Ochs Sad to say, but it turns out that those Eric B. & Rakim reunion rumors were, in fact, a joke. Not a funny one, but one that was perhaps made a little too soon. We reached out to Rakim’s management and learned that even though Ra and Eric have been speaking and remaining close in recent years, “Any statements pertaining to an Eric B and Rakim reunion are completely false.” So there’s no tour and no new music to speak on for the time being. And don’t get us started on those Lord Quas rumors. As much as the very thought might eat away at your true-school loving brain, Madlib‘s squirrel-voiced mad-rapping alter-ego has nothing to do with any potential reunion of Eric B. & Rakim, painful as it is for us to write. But don’t worry folks, all hope is not lost. Ra’s management assures us that it’s all love between the two legends and Rakim himself delivered a statement of gratitude to his fans: “It’s always a blessing to feel that love and support from the fans and I’m definitly going to be celebrating the 30th Anniversary of Paid in Full in 2017 even if I’m not sure how yet.” Their debut album hits 30 laps around the sun in July of next year. There may be movement by then, but in the meantime, we’ll all be playing the waiting game. http://www.okayplayer.com/news/rakim-rep-says-reunion-rumors-w-eric-b-are-completely-false.html

C+C Music Factory was one of the dopest things about the early 90's. It was a well oiled machine of insane talent overseen by Robbie Rob and David Cole. The way they blended genres and their individual talents (producing, DJing, keyboards, emceeing, singing, dancing, visuals, writing, etc) is in a class all its own. After David Cole passed away, impacting the industry way beyond C+C, the group kind of dissolved into compilation albums and a virtually unknown 1995 album. Freedom's solo attempts haven't done well, or even landed on the radar. Anyway, to anyone else who loves the group, here's a good, but unfortunate article on the legal action Rob (owner, producer, DJ) will be taking against Freedom (the lead emcee on their debut album). https://thump.vice.com/en_us/article/cc-music-factory-everybody-dance-now-copyright-battle-freedom-williams?utm_source=vicefbusads&utm_campaign=posteng The Depressing Story of America’s Favorite Pump-Up Jam October 4, 2016 Katie Bain C&C Music Factory's Robert Clivillés, Zelma Davis, Freedom Williams, and David Cole (Photo courtesy of Robert Clivillés) In 1991, there were few musical groups hotter than C&C Music Factory. Launched into the stratosphere on the power of their breakout single "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)," the New York-based act solidified their white-hot status when they won the 1991 Billboard Award for Best New Pop Artist, beating out Boyz II Men, Color Me Badd, EMF and others. After performing an elaborately choreographed medley of their hits, representatives from the group—co-founders Robert Clivillés and David Cole and vocalists Zelma Davis and Freedom Williams—assembled at the podium to accept their award. Williams, who rapped the two verses on "Everybody Dance Now, appeared longhaired and shirtless onstage. His ripped abs glistened with sweat. He closed out the group's acceptance speech by pointing to himself and declaring, "This ain't the C&C Music Factory." He then pointed to the screaming audience. "That is the C&C Music Factory!" It was one of the last appearances C&C Music Factory would ever make together. The Untold Story of Joey Beltram, the Techno Titan Behind the 90s' Most Iconic Rave Anthems 26 years after its release, everyone knows "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)." The song, which spent more than six months on the Billboard Hot 100 chart after being released in October 1990, helped solidify the post-disco, dance-pop era of the early 90s, joining a barrage of club-oriented Top Forty hits by artists like La Bouche, Haddaway, Technotronic and Black Box. With its instantly recognizable staccato guitar riff and soulful, core-rattling refrain—"Everybody dance now!," scream-sung by 90s vocalist Martha Wash—the song has become something of a pop music cliché. Today, it's still a go-to anthem for basketball games and wedding parties, and has soundtracked countless movies and TV shows over the years, including Space Jam, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The Simpsons, and The Office; it even appeared on a 2013 compilation of dance music released by Ellen DeGeneres, and in a 2016 Applebee's commercial. But the story of the song's rise to prominence—along with that of the group that made it—is a far less straightforward affair. Since the late-90s, "Everybody Dance Now" and the name "C&C Music Factory" have been the subject of a bitter battle between the group's co-founder, Clivillés, and the now 50-year-old Williams, who left the group shortly after C&C Music Factory's Billboard Awards appearance to pursue a solo career. Though he departed from the group in 1992, Williams legally trademarked the C&C Music Factory name in 2005. According to Clivillés, Williams has been performing shows under the C&C Music Factory moniker since the 90s, including recent shows in United States, Australia, and Brazil. Now, Clivillés is saying that Williams is profiting unfairly by positioning himself as the group's main (or only) member—when he was merely hired on contract as an ensemble player. The Best Dance Tracks of 20 Years Ago On July 2, 2016, Clivillés posted a 1,382-word, public open letter on his own Facebook page addressed to Williams, threatening legal action to get the C&C Music Factory name back. In the letter, Clivillés indicates that he's prepared to take Williams to court and asks, "Why must you profit/steal and distort from our hard worked & earned history? [sic]" The post racked up over a thousand likes and hundreds of shares, including hundreds of comments from friends and fans echoing Clivillés' outrage. But Clivillés told THUMP that Williams' responded by simply blocking him on Facebook. Williams has also repeatedly declined requests from THUMP to comment on this story, responding over Facebook message on August 29, "I'm way to [sic] busy at the moment to be bothered with that aspect of my business." This is not the first C&C Music Factory-related controversy over how its members are credited. In 1991, Martha Wash, who sang the huge vocal hook in "Everybody Dance Now," sued the group after another C&C Music Factory vocalist, Zelma Davis, lip-synced her parts in the song's music video. The case was settled out of court, with Sony requesting that MTV add a disclaimer to the video crediting Wash for vocals and Davis for "visualization." According to Rolling Stone, Wash's fight for proper credit set an important precedent for artists' rights in intellectual property law; following her case, federal legislation was created to mandate vocal credits on all albums and music videos. Had this legislation been in place when Wash recorded her vocals for "Everybody Dance Now" she likely would have been properly credited in the video for her contribution to the song. Clivillés and David Cole met in the mid 80s, when Clivillés was DJing at New York City club Better Days. Before they had their big break with "Everybody Dance Now," they worked behind-the-scenes, co-writing and producing songs for artists like Chaka Khan and Grace Jones, co-producing remixes, and acting as managers for various groups. Together, they wrote and produced four songs on Mariah Carey's 1991 album Emotions, including the smash hit title track. According to Clivillés, who spoke to THUMP on the phone from his home in New York this past August, he originally wrote "Everybody Dance Now" for Trilogy, a New York-based freestyle act he and Cole also managed. After Trilogy passed on it, Clivillés and Cole decided to use the track to launch their own collaborative project, C&C Music Factory. Clivillés said that when he presented the instrumental version of the track with Wash's vocals to Sony/Columbia execs Tommy Mottola and Donnie Ienner in 1990, they "immediately" signed the duo to a five-album deal. "Everybody Dance Now" would be the lead single from their 1990 debut LP, Gonna Make You Sweat. The Musicians Behind one of the Most Sampled Songs in History Finally Got Paid Clivillés said he and Cole were "C&C," while the vocalists they recruited to sing on their productions were their "Factory." "It was a group created to feature new, unknown acts, or acts that maybe had a few hit records but were not known worldwide," Clivillés explained. Over the years, C&C Music Factory included, Clivillés said, more than a dozen singers, including Martha Wash, Deborah Cooper, Zelma Davis, members of Trilogy, and, of course, Freedom Williams. A lot of the time, Robert would forget The Factory. It was like, 'Dude, we're the Factory. How does the Factory run without any workers?"—C&C Music Factory featured artist Duran Ramos Born in Brooklyn as Frederick Williams, Freedom Williams met Cole and Clivillés in 1989 at New York's Quad Recording Studios, where the pair were working on various tracks and remixes. According to Clivillés, Williams' had a job sweeping the hallways and cleaning the bathrooms at the studio, and was also going to school to become an audio engineer. Clivillés said he helped get Williams promoted to an engineering assistant position at Quad. It was during this time that he and David Cole also heard Williams rap for the first time. Then in his mid-20s, Williams had a rich, baritone timbre and a rhythmic flow that was at once deadpan and bombastic. "I thought he had a good, deep voice for the mic," said Clivillés, who recruited Williams to rap on "Everybody Dance Now." Williams has a writing credit on the song; according to Trilogy member Duran Ramos, Clivillés wrote the first two lines of the rap—"Here is the dome/back with the bass"—and Williams wrote the rest of the two rap verses. (According to Discogs, Williams also has writing credits on four other tracks from Gonna Make You Sweat. Wash was listed as a backup singer on the album, though not the lead singer). Clivillés claimed that's as far as Williams' contributions went. "He had nothing to do with the photo or video sessions, the creation of the music, or the rest of the songs in the [C&C Music Factory] catalog," Clivillés said. According to Clivillés, Williams signed a contract to become one of C&C Music Factory's featured artists. Under the terms of the contract, which was essentially an open-ended development deal, Cole and Clivillés would provide Williams with opportunities to record and perform with C&C Music Factory as well as other groups that Cole and Clivillés managed, like the female dance-pop trio Seduction. Speaking with THUMP, Clivillés stressed that the agreement framed Williams as one of C&C Music Factory's many featured artists, but not as a founder or owner of the group, a designation reserved exclusively for himself and Cole. Robert Clivillés (Photo courtesy of C&C Music Factory Records, NYC) Ramos, who had a featured artist contract similar to Williams', explained in a phone call with THUMP that each person recruited to be a featured artist with C&C Music Factory had a similar contract. "Pretty much everyone had the exact same agreement," he said. "We were featured artists... it was like getting hired for a part." "C&C Music Factory was always clearly David Cole and Robert Clivillés," said Zelma Davis, who was one of C&C Music Factory's lead vocalists. "Freedom and I were told that we were featured members of the group, not owners of the band." The "Happy Birthday" Song Has Finally Been Freed from the Greedy Grips of Copyright "Everybody Dance Now" skyrocketed the members of C&C Music Factory to fame, with the song getting major play on MTV and earning the group a number of accolades, including the aforementioned Billboard Award. Gonna Make You Sweat also generated a number of other hits, most notably "Here We Go (Let's Rock & Roll) and "Things That Make You Go Hmmmm..." In February of 1992, Clivillés, Cole, Williams and Davis appeared with actress Susan Dey in a commercial promoting their appearance as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live. But shortly after this performance, Williams was gone. According to Clivillés, in 1992, Williams asked C&C to release him from their contract together so he could launch his own career. "We featured him on C&C Music Factory to establish him as an artist, so he could then take it solo," Clivillés said. "The group blew up so fast that by the third single, he was like, 'Yo, I'm good. I'm out.'" Clivillés and Cole let him go, recording their sophomore LP, Anything Goes!, without him. The album generated a few successful singles, although nothing would match the massive success of "Gonna Make You Sweat." Then, in 1995, David Cole passed away from spinal meningitis at the age of 32. After releasing a final album, 1995's C+C Music Factory, Clivillés dissolved the group. Williams' 1993 solo album, Freedom, had stalled on the charts, with its lead single—the synthesizer-laden "Voice of Freedom"—peaking at number 74 on the Billboard Hot 100. It remains his only solo album to date. Williams also tried acting, performing in a 1996 episode of the Showtime erotic drama The Red Shoe Diaries before eventually vanishing into obscurity. In a 2014 video interview, he talks about making income as a construction worker. But in the late 90s, Clivillés received an odd piece of news from his friends: Freedom Williams, he was told, was performing solo shows across the United States under the C&C Music Factory name, even though he had left the group years ago. Clivillés said he asked Williams to instead bill himself as "Freedom Williams formerly of C&C Music Factory" and that for a while, Williams did so. Clivillés said that it wasn't long, however, before he started seeing William playing shows in which he presented himself as a member of C&C Music Factory. Then, without notifying Clivillés, Williams legally trademarked "C&C Music Factory" under his birth name Frederick Williams in 2005. In 2015, he trademarked "C&C Music Factory" under his company Freedom Williams Entertainment LLC. According to Colorado-based intellectual property lawyer Shirin Chahal, Williams was able to claim C&C Music Factory's trademark rights because he had toured with the name in the late 90s and early 2000s. "If Williams was touring nationally and his music under the C&C Music Factory name was getting national-wide play—radio, clubs, wherever—he would have a great position that he established common law trademark rights," Chahal explains. Williams has played at least eleven C&C Music Factory-related shows in 2016. On his most recent tour flyers, Williams sometimes positions himself as "Freedom Williams of C+C Music Factory" and "C+C Music Factory Feat: Freedom Williams." Another says "Freedom Williams, the original frontman, face and voice of C&C Music Factory"—with "the original frontman, face and voice" in almost comically tiny font. A few just say "C+C Music Factory." Williams often appears at clubs and casinos alongside other 90s nostalgia acts like Snap!, Corona, and Tone Loc, performing shows that are energetic, if somewhat disjointed. When he performs "Everybody Dance Now," he typically has a female performer singing over Wash's hook. Clivillés estimates that Williams makes between five and ten thousand dollars per booking. A poster from one of Freedom Williams' shows as the front man of C&C Music Factory (Image courtesy of Robert Clivillés) "[Williams] is profiting from the name," says Clivillés, who notes that the name "C&C Music Factory" was never trademarked in the 90s. "He's intentionally telling people that he's the actual creator of the group... It's time that something is done about it." Former C&C Music Factory-featured artist Ramos believes Williams' actions are motivated by issues deeper than money. According to Ramos, Williams and Clivillés often clashed back in the 90s, with Clivillés frequently reminding Williams that he wasn't anything without C&C. "Freedom has strong disdain for Robert," said Ramos, who claimed he remains friendly with both sides. "He would tell you that Robert is controlling, manipulative—that Robert thinks he's the man and didn't see how everyone else made it happen, which I would agree with. A lot of the time, Robert would forget The Factory. It was like, 'Dude, we're the Factory. How does the Factory run without any workers?" Clivillés remembers the situation differently. "The only disagreement I ever had with Freedom was that he wasn't humble when the success came to him," he said. "He immediately thought he was the man, and that cost him his career overnight." Ramos believes Williams is now attempting to get back at Clivillés, and lining his pockets in the process. "It's revenge," Ramos said. "Absolutely." Still, Ramos thinks Clivillés is ultimately in the right. "By taking the name of C&C Music Factory," Ramos said, "[Williams] is taking bread from the table of people that were a part of it, like Trilogy, Zelma, Deborah Cooper and so many others. He's performing songs like 'Do You Wanna Get Funky?,' which he had nothing to do with. That was a song I wrote, and he's doing my rap." "I think it's very arrogant, what Freedom is doing," Ramos concluded. "He'll say Robert is arrogant, but what he's doing [by performing as C&C Music Factory] is the same way." In June of this year, Williams performed "Everybody Dance Now" on longstanding Brazilian variety program Domingão do Faustão. In Portuguese, the show's host asks Williams about the history of the song. Williams replies that he wrote the song for a group he produced for back in the day—when it was actually Clivillés who wrote and produced the instrumental track and laid down Wash's vocals for Trilogy—and that he was homeless at the time of the song's creation. "He's really talking about me, which is weird," said Ramos, who himself was intermittently homeless between 1987 and 1990. "You've gotta be a little nuts to position yourself that way." A poster from one of Freedom Williams' shows under the C&C Music Factory name (Image courtesy of Robert Clivillés) Though Williams declined to comment for this piece, he did make what appeared to be a public acknowledgement of the accusations leveled at him on Instagram, posting an apparent response shortly after Clivillés' open letter. Amongst selfies, travel photos, concert videos, and event flyers promoting C&C Music Factory shows, Williams shared a text image stating, "One of the most annoying things you could do is get into an argument on social media with a person who makes no sense and watch people agree with them." While Clivillés said that he and Williams are not in contact, a few months ago, Ramos claimed he attempted to broker peace between them in conjunction with a television show about C&C Music Factory he was planning to pitch to VH1. (Ramos said the show didn't pan out.) Meanwhile, Clivillés said he has requested all of the original C&C Music Factory contracts from Sony and is interviewing potential lawyers as he gets organized to sue. According to Chahal, his legal options for cancelling the trademark are narrow: because the original trademark was issued more than five years ago, Clivillés will likely have to sue for trademark infringement. Beyond his Instagram posts and performances, Williams remains silent. He doesn't have any current tour dates on the calendar as C&C Music Factory, but his most recent performance under that name happened on September 17, in Fresno, California. Despite the taste of worldwide fame C&C Music Factory experienced two and a half decades ago, it seems a judge will now decide who's free to get onstage and relive these past glories. Regardless of the legal outcome, this situation serves as a reminder that behind many of the enduring tracks in the pop culture canon, there are often small armies of artists and producers fighting over credit and money. Spotlights fade—often sooner than musicians hope—and everyone is left scrambling for a piece of the legacy.

Okayplayer just posted a short article on it... by William Ketchum III Eric B. & Rakim Announce Reunion, Upcoming Tour It ain’t no joke: iconic rap duo Eric B. & Rakim have announced a reunion and an upcoming tour. On Oct. 20, the duo released a simple message from their @EricBandRakim Twitter account: “It’s official. You heard it here first. We are back.” But on Saturday, they released a poll giving their followers four choices of where to launch their upcoming tour: New York, Las Vegas, London and Australia. They also offered Eric. B for president – a choice that many would likely love over either of this year’s candidates. “Vote @EricB because our Great Country deserves a POTUS who can MOVE THE CROWD,” the account tweeted. “@realDonaldTrump cannot and @HillaryClinton will not. EB will!” Eric B & Rakim were the premier rap duo of the 1980s: Rakim being the God MC known for his innovative, literally state-of-the-art rhymes, and Eric B.’s stripped down production and DJing. With classic cuts like “Eric B. Is President,” “I Ain’t No Joke” and “Paid In Full,” and their huge chains, they essentially ushered in rap’s first golden era – and Rakim rightfully remains in many rappers’ top 10 lists. They parted ways around 1993, and continued their careers separately. After a brief trial run with Dr. Dre’s Aftermath Entertainment in the early 2000s, Rakim released 2009’s The Seventh Seal, which is his third and most recent solo album. He announced a new album last year, though he hasn’t delivered one yet. Complex reports that their last time sharing the stage was about six years ago, at the Long Island Music Hall of Fame’s Induction Gala. Whether this reunion results in new music or not, it sounds like a tour full of memories to be made when one of the most iconic rap duos of all time hits the road. Stay tuned to Okayplayer for more updates on the reunion, and watch the videos below for a couple reminders of their greatness. http://www.okayplayer.com/news/eric-b-rakim-announce-reunion-upcoming-tour.html

I don't think any of us saw this coming! They announced it on their official Twitter account. They also have an official website. I get the impression these were Eric B's and that they are in the process of being updated. Most people know that after they released four dope studio albums and because an iconic group, they a business fall out and weren't really on good terms for decades. It looks like they finally patched things up. Eric B & Rakim was one of FP's favorite groups. Perhaps seeing this will prompt him to realize he needs to stop dragging his feet on the JJ+FP tour. After all, he's always gotten inspired by artists he's admired. Here's the website: http://ericbandrakim.com/ And their Twitter: https://twitter.com/EricBandRakim

This article is pretty stupid. It's essentially for non-Hip-Hop fans who know nothing about DJ Jazzy Jeff apart from the character Jazz on FBofBA. I'm sharing it any way... http://www.providr.com/dj-jazzy-jeff-then-and-now?utm_source=MarlonWayans&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=providr

I'm sorry to hear this. Prayers up.

"Caution In The Wild" is better than most of the songs on the soundtrack. I got the soundtrack. It's one of those albums I have to be in the mood to listen to. I like it over all. I even find the songs by artists I don't particularly like somewhat listenable. FP's song would have fit perfectly on it. In fact, I think it would have balanced it out nicely. He probably realized he was being too picky about the song, which is why he launched it on the app. For those complaining about the sound of the song, I'm confused why it's not understood that this song was done for the soundtrack, to fit the vibe of the film. It can't be held to the standard of his regular music. The soundtrack is doing well. I wish they'd release a deluxe edition featuring the "Caution In The Wild." Even though we live in a digital age, nothing beats CD quality sound. People are unaware of the song because they are unaware of the app. If he put it on the soundtrack, released a single and/or video, it would get some kind of buzz.