I grew up dancing, there was always a piece of lino in da endz in my youth, I also grew up with an intense passion for collecting music and what has subsequenty been referred to as ‘crate digging’.
An avid collector of jazz, funk, soul, disco, breaks and Hip Hop and still superfluously impressed from the rhymes and beats of Tribe’s 1993 ‘Midnight Marauders’ album; only added to my zeal for the culture. So we hit 1996 and I’ve just left Wyldpytch Rekords in Soho, to work as A&R manager at Universal Music. Tosh Darg, the marketing manager at Jive UK hit up all us DJ types with the brand new and fourth Tribe Called Quest album ‘Beats, Rhymes & Life’.
At that period of Thadboogie life I was both promoter and DJ at 3 central London night clubs and even though embracing the classic sample heavy boom bap style of previous albums.. club bangers like ‘1nce Again’, ‘Phony Rappers’, ‘Get A Hold’ and ‘Stressed Out’ embraced a newer influence / a different bounce and head nod to their production.
With the introduction of new production beat making entity ‘The Ummah’ comprising of Q Tip, Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Jay Dee aka J Dilla’, the sound was darker and interspersed with some RnB’esque jems. This was a signifying moment in propelling the career of a certain Detroit beatmaker J Dilla.
Click the photo below to listen to Detroit rapper Phat Kat ‘Talk’s Dilla’ :-
We’re now celebrating 20 years since the release of ATCQ – Beats, Rhymes and Life and sadly both J Dilla and Queen’s native Phife Dawg have now both deceased.
Click the photo below to watch Phife Dawg’s perform at his last UK show @ The Jazz Café in 2015
To honour and celebrate the legacy and catalogue of arguably one of the most important rap groups in Hip Hop’s culture, New Balance the global sporting brand have issued a sneaker to mark the 20th year anniversary of ‘Beats, Rhymes and Life’
Socials :-
@Thadboogie
@atcq
@OfficialDilla1
@iamthephifer
@newbalance
