Q-Tip has big plans for album

By John Benson

When Tribe Called Quest rapper Q-Tip decided to create his sophomore solo album, the recently released “The Renaissance,” he wasn’t shy about his goal. In fact, it was high expectations to raise the level of creativity within hip-hop music that compelled the New York City native to record the follow-up to his critically acclaimed 1999 debut solo album, “Amplified.”

“I just wanted to put out a good product that was musically adept and just had a little bit of a different feeling than what’s going on out there right now,” said Q-Tip (born Jonathan Davis), calling from Atlanta. “I feel like hopefully I achieved that. To me, it’s just there’s mediocrity in the music and in the mainstream part of it.

“The major artists are doing songs for radio, I think, and nobody is really taking any chances. I don’t know, that’s what I feel, and I just wanted to do something that was fun, took chances and was adventurous but still had relevance.”

While such expectations are valid, isn’t it idealistic to expect commerce and creativity to consistently intersect? In other words, won’t the mainstream always support the pop candy of whatever musical genre is happening?

“Yeah, but the rate of artistic innovation today as opposed to yesterday has dropped considerably,” Q-Tip said. “Whereas if you looked years ago, you may have had Spice Girls or Vanilla Ice or whoever was pop, but then you still had Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana and Ice Cube. These were acts that were still commercially viable but were pushing the envelope creatively. And now today you have those artists that are kind of more underground and not as mainstream as they once were.”

Granted it remains to be seen whether “The Renaissance” will help open the floodgates for the underground world, but the truth is Q-Tip remains a well known figure within hip-hop stemming from his days with influential group A Tribe Called Quest.

While the band broke up in the late ’90s and did reform a few years ago, Q-Tip said he’s focused mainly on his own music. Fans attending his Thursday show at the House of Blues can expect to hear material from all aspects of his career; however, the one album they won’t hear material from is his 2002 CD “Kamaal the Abstract,” which never received a proper release because his label at the time didn’t feel the album possessed any commercial hits.

Q-Tip, who recently acquired the rights to the highly talked-about and oft bootlegged album, said he hopes to give it a full release next year. So how does he feel the album recorded over six years ago will be received in 2009?

“I think it’ll be cool,” Q-Tip said. “I’m spoiled. I always try to make music that I feel could stand the test of time and sometimes my tastes may be off in some people’s estimation, but that’s one of my main goals is to try to make something that still feels good and fresh whenever you put it on.

“So, in those efforts, I feel exited about releasing ‘Kamaal the Abstract’ because a lot of people didn’t get to hear it.”

As for the timing of “The Renaissance,” it is somewhat conspicuous in the fact the socially conscious Q-Tip released an album about change in the same month America made history by electing its first black president who campaigned on the notion of change.

“No doubt, part of the thing that I felt was real serendipitous is just that I have an album called ‘The Renaissance,’ I have a song called ‘Shaka’ that has a speech with [Barack] Obama on it,” Q-Tip said. “A lot of people have been talking about this change that has been needed in hip-hop, and we clearly have been talking about one politically that we need, so it was just interesting that it all kind of came together like this.”