![]() ![]() His relationship to Tribe is idiosyncratic and impassioned, yet always a portal into keener observations. The thrill of the collection, humbly subtitled “Notes to A Tribe Called Quest,” is how its broader narrative gains momentum as it curves inward into Abdurraqib’s life. A Tribe Called Quest is his muse and his lens into the past. Whether he’s using the Sanford and Son joke buried within “I Left My Wallet in El Segundo” to illustrate how little East Coast rappers knew about the West Coast, or examining Q-Tip’s Mobb Deep collaborations to dwell on his many uses of jazz samples, Abdurraqib never misses a chance to be as panoramic as he is granular. He offers compact introductions to Wu-Tang Clan, Ice Cube, Queen Latifah, and anyone else who brushed shoulders with or influenced the group. ![]() Abdurraqib’s essays are accessible yet rich, threading various histories to situate Tribe’s place within rap, black music, and black culture. ![]() Moving linearly through Tribe’s catalog, Go Ahead in the Rain details how the group and hip-hop at large evolved throughout the 1990s. ![]()
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