The late October release from the Knux, Remind Me in 3 Days… (Interscope), may ultimately be remembered as what revived the dirty funk synonymous with Outkast’s early catalog, but both Krispy Kream and Rah Al Amillo will have their eyes firmly fixed on another inspiration Thursday at Stubb’s. Q-Tip, formerly of A Tribe Called Quest, headlines with the Knux and the Cool Kids, and the hip-hop vet’s influence can be found at 3 Days’ beginning, middle, and end.
One listen will expose the Los Angeles-based brothers’ debut as a bit rougher than the Tribe work it pulls from, but credit that to evolution. Stacked next to 1991’s The Low End Theory, 3 Days possesses that same musical intonation, a comparable understanding of what’s worked in the past and how that can be built upon.
In 1991, Tribe incorporated jazz into hip-hop, cued up Ron Carter to play the upright bass on “Verses from the Abstract,” and delivered the eternal line that opens “Excursions”: “You could find the abstract listening to hip-hop. My pops used to say it reminded him of bebop. I said, ‘Well, daddy, don’t you know that things go in cycles? The way that Bobby Brown was just ampin’ like Michael?’”
They took a left turn when trends wanted them to go right. Despite De La Soul’s 3 Feet High and Rising and Tribe’s 1990 People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm, the attention hip-hop garnered in the early 1990s was deeply rooted in the mind of the gangsta. To be A Tribe Called Quest was to claim the underground, but Low End Theory legitimized the movement. Theory made it possible for the Pharcyde to break out, for De La Soul to embrace their funky side in a way that wasn’t as self-deprecating as 1991’s De La Soul is Dead, and eventually for Interscope to throw the Knux a deal.
Tribe sorted through the muck of the movement with looks into artist exploitation (“Show Business”), phony rappers (“Vibes and Stuff”), and materialism (“Skypager”). Q-Tip and Phife didn’t just love it or hate it; they wrestled with it. They were the bullies bullying other bullies, the hotshots who couldn’t live without their guilty pleasures.
These same sentiments hold true with the Knux. They may not be from Los Angeles – they moved to the West Coast after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans – but they’re caught up in the movement. “Powder Room,” “The List,” and “Playboys” scream scenester, chugging out brash guitar licks and lyrical insertions (like the voice mail from Krispy to Al that kicks off “The List”) that suggest the duo is more consumed by Los Angeles’ social brew-ha-ha than they’d like you to believe.
Don’t believe the hype? Check the chemistry. The Knux split verses in that classic Q-Tip/Phife way, finishing each other’s lines and setting the pins for the next guy to knock down. Their appeal lies on the surface as lyricists; they’re not as socially adept or outright dynamic with their subject matter as Tribe was. Like the Cool Kids, the Knux make no bones about just having a good time. Their lead single, a song so funky it’ll have you high-steppin’ around your living room in some bizarrrrrrre ways, is called “Cappuccino” and might not have anything to do with anything.
As if Thursday night couldn’t get any fresher, Q-Tip dropped his own funkification two weeks ago. On his first official collection of original material since 1999’s Amplified, Tip’s The Renaissance (Universal Motown) puts to good use what he knows best. The jazz abstracts that carried Tribe’s catalog get fine-tuned and stripped down, but it’s still the most basic propeller of The Renaissance’s mantra. Q-Tip’s less focused on changing the game; as a rapper/producer nearly twenty years in the madness, he’s playing on his own field.
At times he stumbles. The piano layers of “You” carry on a minute more than they should, and the hi-hat tease throughout “ManWomanBoogie” never materializes into the stomper it should be, but he’s hardly lost his touch. That witty, curling lyrical delivery has been left unscathed over the past decade, and his jazzed-out production, captured perfectly on the playground bounce of “Won’t Trade” and the Norah Jones-tranced “Life is Better,” has aged quite well. “So what good is an ear if a Q-Tip isn’t in it?”
This article appears in November 14 • 2008.