1985-1998, 2006-2017Q-Tip1985-2017
Phife Dawg1985-1998, 2006-2016
Ali Shaheed Muhammad1985-2017
Jarobi White1988-1990, 2006-2017
Consequence1993-1998
The group is one of the seminal hip-hop acts of their era, but when A Tribe Called Quest first came out, several critics bashed them for not being catchy enough. In his review of ATCQ's first album People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm, one Rolling Stone writer called the disc "one of the least danceable rap albums ever" and said it was "impossible to imagine how people would put this music to use."
A Tribe Called Quest founding member Q-Tip lost his home and record collection in 1994. A fire that started at a house party spread he was hosting spread and incinerated his whole pad. Fortunately, nobody was hurt and several of Q-Tip's good friends, such as Pete Rock, helped him rebuild his house and his spirit.
At first, Atlanta rapper T.I. began performing locally under the moniker Tip. Once he began to gain notoriety, he quickly changed his name so that fans wouldn't confuse him with Q-Tip, the founding member and rapper from A Tribe Called Quest. Q-Tip created his stage name by combining "Q" – which stands for Queens, his home borough in New York City – with "Tip," a nickname he earned in high school.
A Tribe Called Quest were the main attraction in a New York City hip-hop collective they called Native Tongues, which includes De La Soul, Jungle Brothers, Queen Latifah, Monie Love and Black Sheep. They were bonded by friendship, with music focused on clever, intelligent lyrics and boundary-breaking samples and beats. They also had a high standard for music videos, which were often shot in the area and featured each other.
Actress Nicole Kidman is married to country star Keith Urban, but in the early 2000s, she had a fling with Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest. In 2003, Q-Tip admitted to an American radio station that he'd slept with the Oscar-winning actress. Before her marriage, Kidman was also romantically linked to Sherlock Holmes actor Jude Law as well as rocker Lenny Kravitz.
A Tribe Called Quest founding member Phife Dawg was diagnosed with diabetes in 1990 and struggled with the condition ever since. In 2010, the rapper told The Urban Daily that the condition was hereditary (his mother had diabetes) and that it was made worse by ATCQ's busy touring schedule which caused him to eat too much fast food. Phife Dawg's kidneys began to fail in 1999 and he started dialysis in 2004. Eventually, his wife donated a kidney to him and he regained control over his diabetes before A Tribe Called Quest's reunion in 2008. Phife passed away in 2016 at age 45.
A Tribe Called Quest founding member Jarobi White left the group after their first album to pursue a career as a chef. In August 2011, White explained that his decision to leave ATCQ was partly due to money. When the group's first album sold over 800,000 copies, the four members were forced to split only $80,000 of royalties equally. White concluded that he needed to not only get away from New York City (which he called "racist" and "oppressive") but also that he needed a better source of income to fall back on. The rapper moved to Washington D.C. and since been considered an occasional member of A Tribe Called Quest.
Dave Chappelle says A Tribe Called Quest convinced him to return to television. Chappelle abruptly quit his Comedy Central show in 2005 and declined all TV appearances until 2016, when he agreed to host the November 12, 2016 episode of Saturday Night Live because Tribe were the musical guests. This was the first episode after Donald Trump was elected president.
In 2024, Chappelle inducted A Tribe Called Quest into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.
Busta Rhymes had a breakout moment when he dropped a memorable verse in the 1991 Tribe song "
Scenario" ("Rawr! Rawr! Like a dungeon dragon!"). Busta made many more appearances with the group over the years. He called them "the best exemplification of timeless greatness in its most impeccable form."
Most hip-hop acts of the early '90s were using funk and disco grooves for their samples, but A Tribe Called Quest broke ground by integrating jazz music, often culled from their parents' record collections. Examples:
"Electric Relaxation" samples Ronnie Foster's "Mystic Brew"
"Jazz (We've Got)" samples Jimmy McGriff's "Green Dolphin Street"
"Excursions" samples Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers' "A Chant for Bu"
On their song "Verses From The Abstract," they brought in jazz great Ron Carter to play the bassline.
When inducting the band into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, Dave Chappelle explained how they changed the culture:
"People started dressing better. People started being kinder because hip-hop was about being thuggish and all this s--t. But when tribe came out it was a cue for everybody that you could be cool and not necessarily be gangster."
The group broke up in 1998 after five albums. The following year, Q-Tip released a solo album called Amplified with the hit "Vivrant Thing." The group reunited in 2008 but didn't put out another album until 2016 after the death of Phife. That album, We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service, was their swan song.
