video review: 'we got it from here... thank you 4 your service' by a tribe called quest

Well, Patreon votes got it up first, so here we go. Man, this was great - again, I know I didn't like this more than De La Soul, but it still has a ton to offer... so good.

And on the note of double albums... stay tuned!

album review: 'we got it from here... thank you 4 your service' by a tribe called quest

I've said a number of times before that it's difficult to tackle legends... and hell, with as many comebacks as we've seen recently, it's made my job all the more complicated. And I guess I should have known as soon as De La Soul made their big return with ...and the anonymous nobody this year - which I absolutely loved, for the record - it would only be a matter of time before I had to talk about their Native Tongues contemporaries, A Tribe Called Quest.

And truth be told, I'm not really sure what there is to say here. I went back through their entire discography, and while I wouldn't quite say I loved it as much as De La Soul, I definitely get and appreciate Q-Tip, Jarobi White, Ali Shaheed Mohammed, and the late Phife Dawg's work here. In terms of smooth yet conscious jazz rap, these guys were pioneers, and their albums have held up ridiculously well in terms of tones and textures decades later, and while I might prefer De La Soul's more experimental flourishes in production and wordplay, I can't deny that A Tribe Called Quest had a knack for stronger and accessible hooks, and they were plenty experimental all the same.

And thus when they broke up at the end of the 90s thanks to label frustrations, it stood to reason that we'd probably never get another album, especially when Phife Dawg died entirely too soon earlier this year. But somehow they had pulled together enough verses to make one last record, to pass the torch to the next generation. And just like with De La Soul, the list of collaborators on this project was extensive and often surprising, from old friends like Consequence, Busta Rhymes, and Talib Kweli to the new generation in Kendrick and Anderson .Paak to surprises like Kanye West, Andre 3000, Elton John and Jack White. All of this in another double album... man, I had to hear this. So I dug into We Got It From Here... Thank You 4 Your Service - did it deserve all of the critical acclaim?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - december 3, 2016 (VIDEO)

Well, this is a damn good way to start a year, I most certainly approve. More of this, less all of 2016, please?

Next up, though, after the Patreon reshuffling of the schedule last night... well, we'll see. Stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - december 3, 2016

Well, here we are, folks: welcome to the third year of Billboard BREAKDOWN! Year three, covering the Billboard year of 2017, and man alive, I'm hoping that it'll be be better than the disaster of mediocrity that was 2016. We'll be covering more that near the end of December during the year-end end lists, but until then, let's focus on 2017... and I have to say, if we're going to start off like this, I've got a really good feeling going forward. Not perfect by any stretch, but overall... yeah, there's a lot to get excited about.