Eamon Blog

Today's Shelf Pull: A Tribe Called Quest, Still Moving Properly

A Tribe Called Quest's The Anthology is on the shelf today: a 2LP reminder that clever hip-hop does not have to stand in the corner looking pleased with itself.

There are records that arrive with a lecture attached.

Important records. Influential records. Records people discuss with the facial expression of someone explaining tax relief.

A Tribe Called Quest avoided most of that by doing something far more useful: they made intelligence sound relaxed.

The Anthology is on the shelf today, and it is exactly the sort of compilation that earns its place. Not because it replaces the albums. It does not. Albums have their own rooms, their own weather, their own strange sequencing decisions that become part of the furniture over time.