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We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service

"Thank You 4 Your Service" redirects here. For other uses, see Thank You for Your Service (disambiguation).

We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service (stylized as We got it from Here... Thank You 4 Your service) is the sixth and final studio album by American hip hop group A Tribe Called Quest. It was released on November 11, 2016, by Epic Records.

We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service
Studio album by
A Tribe Called Quest
ReleasedNovember 11, 2016
RecordedNovember 2015 – October 2016
StudioThe AbLab in New Jersey
Genre
Length60:20
LabelEpic
Producer
  • A Tribe Called Quest (exec.)
  • Q-Tip
  • Blair Wells (co.)
A Tribe Called Quest chronology
The Love Movement
(1998) 		We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service
(2016)
Singles from We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service
  1. "We the People...."
    Released: November 17, 2016[3]
  2. "Dis Generation"
    Released: February 10, 2017[4]

Released 18 years after its predecessor The Love Movement, the album was recorded at the AbLab, the New Jersey home studio of group member Q-Tip. The recording featured guest appearances from André 3000, Kendrick Lamar, Jack White, Elton John, Kanye West, Anderson .Paak, Talib Kweli, Consequence, and Busta Rhymes. It was one of the final recorded appearances of group member Phife Dawg, who died in March 2016 from complications of diabetes.

We Got It from Here... became A Tribe Called Quest's second album to chart atop the Billboard 200. It was also a widespread critical success, named by many music publications as one of 2016's ten best albums. The following year, the album was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), having sold at least 500,000 album-equivalent units.

Background

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After The Love Movement, A Tribe Called Quest split up due to relationship issues between group members, effectively rendering The Love Movement as the supposed final album. For years, Tribe denied that any new material was recorded, or even planned, although they reunited briefly to play several shows during Kanye West's Yeezus Tour in 2013. On November 13, 2015, the group performed on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Feeling "charged", the group put aside their differences, and decided to record the album in secrecy.[5] Group member Q-Tip said that because of The Tonight Show appearance, "I knew if we were connecting with that kind of energy in a performance, it would be easy to go back to the studio." Phife Dawg's mother said her son "thought they might be able to make a five-song EP and that would be it. He never thought they’d have enough for a whole album."[6]

Recording and production

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The album was recorded for nearly a year at Q-Tip's home studio, the AbLab in New Jersey; the name was derived from "Abstract", one of the rapper's monikers. The studio had been designed with his longtime engineer Blair Wells as a "dream project" that "took years to complete", according to Consequence, the rapper's cousin.[6] The studio was stored with analog recording equipment, including preamplifiers used on recordings done by Jimi Hendrix, Blondie, and the Ramones, as well as a tape recorder that once belonged to Frank Zappa.[6]

Q-Tip and Phife Dawg spent four months together working on the album;[6] group member and DJ Ali Shaheed Muhammad was unable to co-produce with Q-Tip, as he was producing the Luke Cage soundtrack with Adrian Younge at the time.[7] Q-Tip and Phife Dawg talked extensively about adhering to but not being limited by their group's musical roots. "We knew we had to keep the thread but also push it forward", Q-Tip later said. "With the beats, he was always quick to be like thumbs-up, thumbs-down. He was usually right dead on." In the early stages of making the album, Q-Tip drew inspiration from the rock records of the Stooges and Iggy Pop. "I just love it", he later said. "I think you can hear the rock in our record too."[6]

Phife Dawg traveled to New Jersey by plane from his home, where he was receiving dialysis treatment three times a week for diabetes. The rest of his time was spent staying at a hotel near Q-Tip's home with his manager Dion "Rasta Root" Liverpool and recording the album during the evening. As Liverpool recalled, "every evening he'd go down to the house, and he and Tip would spend hours in there vibing and coming up with lines. 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." Q-Tip later said he felt like they were "kids again". On March 22, 2016, Phife Dawg died at his home from complications with diabetes. Q-Tip went on to finish the album.[6]

The album's production was credited to Q-Tip, with Wells given co-producer credit.[8][9] Scratching credits on the album are attributed to DJ Scratch.[8] The recording featured guest contributions from André 3000, Kendrick Lamar, Jack White, Elton John, Kanye West, Anderson .Paak, Talib Kweli, and A Tribe Called Quest's most frequent collaborators Consequence and Busta Rhymes.[10][5][11][12] The album's title had been chosen by Phife Dawg, and although the other members did not understand its meaning, they kept it in place after his death.[5] Q-Tip has stated that it is the group's last album.[13]

Release and sales

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We Got It from Here… Thank You 4 Your Service was released by Epic Records on November 11, 2016.[14] The following day, A Tribe Called Quest appeared as the musical guest on the sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, where they performed "We the People...." and "The Space Program".[6] On November 20, the album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, earning 135,000 album-equivalent units, with 112,000 of that figure being pure album sales. It became A Tribe Called Quest's second number one album, and their first since 1996, marking the longest time between number one albums for a hip hop act.[15] On May 22, 2017, it was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), indicating sales of at least 500,000 album-equivalent units. With this, all of the group's studio albums have received an RIAA certification.[16]

Critical reception

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Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
SourceRating
AnyDecentMusic?8.4/10[17]
Metacritic91/100[14]
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic     [7]
The A.V. ClubB+[18]
Entertainment WeeklyB+[19]
The Guardian     [20]
The Independent     [21]
The Irish Times     [22]
Pitchfork9.0/10[23]
Record Collector     [24]
Rolling Stone     [25]
Vice (Expert Witness)A+[26]

We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service was met with widespread critical acclaim. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 91, based on 26 reviews;[14] it was the year's best-reviewed hip hop album and fourth best-reviewed album overall, according to the website.[27]

Reviewing the album for Entertainment Weekly in November 2016, Ray Rahman said the album "vividly demonstrate[s] the group's unassailable greatness and continued relevance".[19] Christopher R. Weingarten of Rolling Stone believed that "in both delivery and content", A Tribe Called Quest "maintain the attitude of the Bohemian everydude funkonauts that inspired Kanye West, Andre 3000 and Kendrick Lamar (who all appear here)".[25] In Spin, Brian Josephs praised how the group "worked with the understanding that black music at its finest conversed with ancestry while pointing toward future possibilities in resistance against the racist forces that run parallel."[28] According to Michael Madden from Consequence of Sound, the album exhibits "the classic Tribe sound: a warm and crisp confluence of East Coast hip-hop, jazz, and more, all mixed and mastered impeccably",[1] while Clayton Purdom of The A.V. Club believed the music had more in common with Q-Tip's 2008 solo album The Renaissance than with the group's previous work; he called We Got It from Here... "a sinuous sound collage pulling much more from ’90s and ’00s R&B than it does Native Tongues boom-bap".[18]

Critic Robert Christgau hailed the album as a "triumph" in his review for Vice, writing that the record "represents both their bond and the conscious black humanism they felt sure the nation was ready for ... urging us to love each other as much as we can as we achieve a happiness it's our duty to reaccess if we're to battle as all we can be."[26] He rated it an A-plus. He later said he "rashly awarded that grade in the wake of Donald Trump's electoral coup", but nevertheless went on to name it as the tenth best album of the decade.[29] In The Observer, Kitty Empire wrote that "as the album enters its final third, some focus is lost, but the first two-thirds take no prisoners either lyrically or musically."[30]

Accolades

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At the end of 2016, We Got It from Here... was named one of the year's best albums by music publications; according to Metacritic, it was the eighth most ranked record on critics' top-10 lists. Four critics named it the best album of 2016, including Annie Mac from BBC Radio 1. It was ranked third by Complex; fourth by Billboard, Paste, Q, Slant Magazine, and Spin; fifth by Clash; sixth by The Independent and State; seventh by Pitchfork; eighth by Fact; and tenth by Esquire.[31] New York Times chief critic Jon Pareles ranked We Got It from Here... third on his own year-end list.[32] Christgau named it 2016's best album in his ballot for The Village Voice's annual Pazz & Jop critics poll[33] and later the tenth best album of the 2010s in a decade-end list.[29] Pitchfork ranked We Got It from Here... at number 44 on its decade-end list of "The 200 Best Albums of the 2010s".[34]

Track listing

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  • All tracks produced by Q-Tip and co-produced by Blair Wells.
Side A
No.TitleWriter(s)VocalsLength
1."The Space Program"
5:40
2."We the People...."
  • Q-Tip
  • Phife
2:52
3."Whateva Will Be"
2:52
4."Solid Wall of Sound"
3:43
5."Dis Generation"
  • Q-Tip
  • Phife
  • Jarobi
  • Busta Rhymes
3:33
6."Kids..."
3:48
7."Melatonin"
4:44
8."Enough!!"
  • Fareed
  • Jarobi White
  • Q-Tip
  • Jarobi
3:20
Side B
No.TitleWriter(s)VocalsLength
9."Mobius"
  • Q-Tip
  • Busta Rhymes
  • Consequence
2:51
10."Black Spasmodic"
  • Fareed
  • Taylor
  • Q-Tip
  • Phife
  • Consequence
3:03
11."The Killing Season"
2:43
12."Lost Somebody"
  • Q-Tip
  • Jarobi
  • Katia Cadet
4:18
13."Movin Backwards"
4:41
14."Conrad Tokyo"
  • Phife
  • Kendrick Lamar
3:31
15."Ego"
  • Fareed
  • Jack White
Q-Tip3:17
16."The Donald"Fareed
  • Q-Tip
  • Phife
  • Busta Rhymes
  • Cadet
5:22
Total length:60:20

Sample credits

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Personnel

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Credits are adapted from the album's liner notes.[36]

A Tribe Called Quest

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  • Q-Tip – vocals (tracks 1–13, 15, 16), bass (tracks 2, 4, 6, 8–13, 15, 16), drums (tracks 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 13), keyboards (tracks 2, 5, 11), drum programming (tracks 2, 5, 7, 14)
  • Phife – vocals (tracks 1–5, 10, 14, 16)
  • Jarobi White – vocals (tracks 1, 3, 5, 8, 11–13)

Additional musicians

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  • Marsha Ambrosius – vocals (track 7)
  • André 3000 – vocals (track 6)
  • Casey Benjamin – keyboards (tracks 2, 6, 13), Fender Rhodes (tracks 7), organ (track 9), piano (track 15)
  • Kris Bowers – piano (track 12)
  • Busta Rhymes – vocals (tracks 4, 5, 9, 16)
  • Katia Cadet – vocals (tracks 12, 16)
  • Louis Cato – bass (tracks 1, 15), guitar (tracks 11, 16), additional bass (track 7)
  • Mark Colenburg – additional drums (track 7)
  • Consequence – vocals (track 3, 9, 10, 11)
  • Masayuki "BIGYUKI" Hirano – keyboards (tracks 1, 4, 6, 8, 9, 11, 16), synthesizer (track 7)
  • Elton John – vocals (track 4), piano (track 4)
  • Talib Kweli – vocals (track 11)
  • Kendrick Lamar – vocals (track 14)
  • Anderson .Paak – vocals (track 13)
  • Chris Parks – guitar (track 12)
  • Chris Sholar – guitar (tracks 1, 7, 12, 13, 15), acoustic guitar (track 9)
  • Yebba (Abbey Smith) – vocals (track 7)
  • George "DJ Scratch" Spivey – scratches (tracks 8, 15, 16)
  • Thaddaeus Tribbett – bass (track 7)
  • Blair Wells – guitar (track 9)
  • Kanye West – vocals (track 11)
  • Jack White – guitar (tracks 15, 16), vocals (track 4), acoustic guitar (track 4)

Production

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  • A Tribe Called Quest – executive production
  • Q-Tip – production, recording, mixing
  • Blair Wells – co-production, recording, mixing
  • Gloria Kaba – assistant engineer
  • Dave Kennedy – mixing (tracks 1, 2, 4, 6–8, 12)
  • Vlado Meller – mastering
  • Jeremy Lubsey – mastering assistant
  • Michael Starita – additional vocal recording (track 5)
  • Laura Gonzalez – assistant engineer (track 5)
  • Robert Kirby – assistant engineer (track 5)

Release

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  • Tracey Waples – production consultation
  • Thom Skarzynski – product manager
  • Richard Prince – album cover design
  • Anita Marisa Boriboon – creative director, album packaging art direction, design

Charts

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Certifications

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Region Certification Certified units/sales
United States (RIAA)[60] Gold 500,000‡

‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.

References

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  1. ^ a b Madden, Michael (November 15, 2016). "Life goes on with A Tribe Called Quest". Consequence of Sound. Retrieved November 16, 2016.
  2. ^ Weiss, Dan (November 22, 2016). "A Tribe Called Quest: We got it from Here... Thank You 4 Your service Review". Paste. Retrieved November 26, 2016.
  3. ^ "A Tribe Called Quest sounds the alarm in the first video from its new album". The A.V. Club. 18 November 2016.
  4. ^ "New Music: Tribe Called Quest drops "Dis Generation" as latest single -". deeperthebeats.com. Retrieved 15 April 2017.
  5. ^ a b c Touré (November 2, 2016). "Loss Haunts A Tribe Called Quest's First Album in 18 Years". The New York Times. Retrieved November 4, 2016.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Gonzales, Michael A. (November 15, 2016). "A Tribe Called Quest's Soundtrack to the Resistance". The Village Voice. Retrieved November 24, 2018.
  7. ^ a b Sendra, Tim. "We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service – A Tribe Called Quest". AllMusic. Retrieved November 16, 2019.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i Strauss, Matthew (November 12, 2016). "Here Are the Full Credits for the New Tribe Called Quest Album". Pitchfork. Retrieved November 14, 2016.
  9. ^ "Blair Wells - Credits - AllMusic". AllMusic.
  10. ^ Young, Alex (November 4, 2016). "A Tribe Called Quest enlist Jack White, André 3000, Kendrick Lamar for new album". Consequence of Sound. Retrieved November 4, 2016.
  11. ^ Strauss, Matthew (November 3, 2016). "A Tribe Called Quest Reveal Artwork for New Album We got it from Here Thank You 4 Your service". Pitchfork. Retrieved November 4, 2016.
  12. ^ Platon, Adelle (November 2, 2016). "A Tribe Called Quest's Final Album Will Include Elton John, Kendrick Lamar, Jack White, Andre 3000 & Busta Rhymes". Pitchfork. Retrieved November 4, 2016.
  13. ^ "Q-Tip on Tribe Called Quest: "This Is Our Last Record, and We'll Probably Do a World Tour" - Pitchfork". Pitchfork. 17 November 2016.
  14. ^ a b c "Reviews for We Got It From Here...Thank You 4 Your Service by A Tribe Called Quest". Metacritic. Retrieved November 14, 2016.
  15. ^ Caulfield, Keith (November 20, 2016). "A Tribe Called Quest Returns to No. 1 on Billboard 200 Chart After 20-Year Wait". Billboard. Retrieved November 21, 2016.
  16. ^ "A Tribe Called Quest Score First RIAA Certification in 18.5 Years for 'We Got It from Here…'". djbooth.net. Complex Music. 31 May 2017. Retrieved 2017-11-26.
  17. ^ "We Got It From Here... Thank You 4 Your Service by A Tribe Called Quest reviews". AnyDecentMusic?. Retrieved November 26, 2016.
  18. ^ a b Purdom, Clayton (November 15, 2016). "Life goes on with A Tribe Called Quest". The A.V. Club. Retrieved November 15, 2016.
  19. ^ a b Rahman, Ray (November 14, 2016). "A Tribe Called Quest's We Got It From Here... Thank You 4 Your Service: EW Review". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on November 14, 2016. Retrieved November 14, 2016.
  20. ^ MacInnes, Paul (November 17, 2016). "A Tribe Called Quest: We Got It from Here … Thank You 4 Your Service review – a passing of the torch". The Guardian. Retrieved November 18, 2016.
  21. ^ Gill, Andy (November 17, 2016). "Album reviews: The Hidden Cameras – Home On Native Land, Jim James – Eternally Even, and more". The Independent. Retrieved November 18, 2016.
  22. ^ Carroll, Jim (November 17, 2016). "A Tribe Called Quest – We Got It From Here . . . Thank You For 4 Your Service: a poignant triumph". The Irish Times. Retrieved November 18, 2016.
  23. ^ Ex, Kris (November 16, 2016). "A Tribe Called Quest: We got it from Here... Thank You 4 Your service". Pitchfork. Retrieved November 17, 2016.
  24. ^ Bowler, Paul (January 2017). "A Tribe Called Quest – We Got It From Here… Thank You 4 Your Service". Record Collector (462). Retrieved January 9, 2017.
  25. ^ a b Weingarten, Christopher R. (November 14, 2016). "Review: A Tribe Called Quest Make Urgent Return on 'We Got It From Here ...'". Rolling Stone. Retrieved November 14, 2016.
  26. ^ a b Christgau, Robert (November 25, 2016). "We the People: Expert Witness with Robert Christgau". Vice. Retrieved November 25, 2016.
  27. ^ "Best Albums of 2016". Metacritic. Retrieved December 25, 2016.
  28. ^ Josephs, Brian (November 14, 2016). "Review: A Tribe Called Quest's Vital Final Album Reminds Us the Journey Continues". Spin. Retrieved November 14, 2016.
  29. ^ a b Christgau, Robert (December 20, 2019). "Dean's List: The 2010s". And It Don't Stop. Substack. Retrieved December 21, 2019.
  30. ^ Empire, Kitty (November 13, 2016). "A Tribe Called Quest: We Got it from Here… Thank You 4 Your Service review – a poignant comeback". The Observer. Retrieved November 14, 2016.
  31. ^ "Music Critic Top 10 Lists - Best Albums of 2016". Metacritic. Retrieved December 25, 2016.
  32. ^ Pareles, Jon; Caramanica, Jon; Chinen, Nate (December 7, 2016). "The Best Albums of 2016". The New York Times. Retrieved December 25, 2016.
  33. ^ Christgau, Robert (n.d.). "The Village Voice's 44th Pazz & Jop Music Critics' Poll". The Village Voice. Retrieved January 28, 2017.
  34. ^ "The 200 Best Albums of the 2010s". Pitchfork. October 8, 2019. Retrieved October 9, 2019.
  35. ^ "Ego by a Tribe Called Quest feat. Jack White on WhoSampled". WhoSampled.
  36. ^ Anon. (2016). We got it from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service (CD booklet). A Tribe Called Quest. Epic Records. 88985377872.
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  40. ^ "Ultratop.be – A Tribe Called Quest – We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service" (in French). Hung Medien. Retrieved January 28, 2017.
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  42. ^ "Dutchcharts.nl – A Tribe Called Quest – We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved November 19, 2016.
  43. ^ "A Tribe Called Quest: We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service" (in Finnish). Musiikkituottajat – IFPI Finland. Retrieved January 15, 2017.
  44. ^ "Lescharts.com – A Tribe Called Quest – We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service". Hung Medien. Retrieved November 22, 2016.
  45. ^ "Offiziellecharts.de – A Tribe Called Quest – We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service" (in German). GfK Entertainment Charts. Retrieved May 31, 2017.
  46. ^ "GFK Chart-Track Albums: Week 46, 2016". Chart-Track. IRMA. Retrieved November 19, 2016.
  47. ^ "Charts.nz – A Tribe Called Quest – We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service". Hung Medien. Retrieved November 18, 2016.
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  51. ^ "Swisscharts.com – A Tribe Called Quest – We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service". Hung Medien. Retrieved November 23, 2016.
  52. ^ "Official Albums Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved November 19, 2016.
  53. ^ "Official R&B Albums Chart Top 40". Official Charts Company. Retrieved March 7, 2017.
  54. ^ "A Tribe Called Quest Chart History (Billboard 200)". Billboard. Retrieved November 21, 2016.
  55. ^ "A Tribe Called Quest Chart History (Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums)". Billboard. Retrieved November 23, 2016.
  56. ^ "ARIA Top 100 Urban Albums Chart 2017". ARIA Charts. Retrieved August 14, 2018.
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