Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest

American Music Series

by Hanif Abdurraqib

How does one pay homage to A Tribe Called Quest? The seminal rap group brought jazz into the genre, resurrecting timeless rhythms to create masterpieces such as The Low End Theory and Midnight Marauders. Seventeen years after their last album, they resurrected themselves with an intense, socially conscious record, We Got It from Here . . . Thank You 4 Your Service, which arrived when fans needed it most, in the aftermath of the 2016 election. Poet and essayist Hanif Abdurraqib digs into the group’s history and draws from his own experience to reflect on how its distinctive sound resonated among fans like himself. The result is as ambitious and genre-bending as the rap group itself.

Abdurraqib traces the Tribe's creative career, from their early days as part of the Afrocentric rap collective known as the Native Tongues, through their first three classic albums, to their eventual breakup and long hiatus. Their work is placed in the context of the broader rap landscape of the 1990s, one upended by sampling laws that forced a reinvention in production methods, the East Coast–West Coast rivalry that threatened to destroy the genre, and some record labels’ shift from focusing on groups to individual MCs. Throughout the narrative Abdurraqib connects the music and cultural history to their street-level impact. Whether he’s remembering The Source magazine cover announcing the Tribe’s 1998 breakup or writing personal letters to the group after bandmate Phife Dawg’s death, Abdurraqib seeks the deeper truths of A Tribe Called Quest; truths that—like the low end, the bass—are not simply heard in the head, but felt in the chest.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Essays, Memoir, Poetry, Biography, History

216 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 1, 2019

About the author

Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His poetry has been published in Muzzle, Vinyl, PEN American, and various other journals. His essays and music criticism have been published in The FADER, Pitchfork, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. His first full length poetry collection, The Crown Ain't Worth Much, was released in June 2016 from Button Poetry. It was named a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Prize, and was nominated for a Hurston-Wright Legacy Award. With Big Lucks, he released a limited edition chapbook, Vintage Sadness, in summer 2017 (you cannot get it anymore and he is very sorry.) His first collection of essays, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, was released in winter 2017 by Two Dollar Radio and was named a book of the year by Buzzfeed, Esquire, NPR, Oprah Magazine, Paste, CBC, The Los Angeles Review, Pitchfork, and The Chicago Tribune, among others. He released Go Ahead In The Rain: Notes To A Tribe Called Quest with University of Texas press in February 2019. The book became a New York Times Bestseller, and was met with critical acclaim. His second collection of poems, A Fortune For Your Disaster, was released in 2019 by Tin House. He is a graduate of Beechcroft High School.

Reviews

[Lucy Dacus · Rating 5 out of 5]

If only every writer approached their subjects with the generosity, humility, respect, and honesty that Hanif does.

[Jessica Hopper · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book does so many things, and expands the frame of critical biography so crucially. Diving deep in to Tribe's history is only a part of what Hanif Abdurraqib does here -- where the book sings is all the context he adds to the story, about what it meant to love them, the spaces where their work illuminates and anchors his understanding of love, success, innovation, the inevitable, black enterprise. This work, much like his other books of critical essay and poetry invites the reader in. It's a rich, nuanced book that gloriously and irreverently disregards the form of how artist biography is supposed to arc and regards, and instead it lives and breathes as something more organic and familiar that is recognizable to anyone whose life has been shaped by fandom.

[Jak Krumholtz · Rating 5 out of 5]

When this book arrived Monday I sent a pic of my daughter holding it to my sister that introduced me to Hanif’s writing. I said sometimes fans can’t wait until drop dates. Tuesday I was home sick and played Tribe’s whole discography for comfort. It’s Wednesday now and I just finished it. Shift your plans Friday and go get this.

Abdurraqib released my favorite book of 2018.

He may have just done it in 2019.

[Annie · Rating 5 out of 5]

not trying to be all "hanif is the premier music critic of our time" or anything but "hanif is the premier music critic of our time"

[chantel nouseforaname · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not crying. I swear. I'm. Not. Crying... I..I.. just have something in my eye.

Yo, Hanif Abdurraqib is a BRILLIANT writer. He really knows how to put you into his life. He fits you right in there with his schoolyard friends. He fits you right in there with him playing the trumpet in his bedroom as a young boy. He fits you right in there with the tape decks and the cd players. You really get into his head and his exploration of music, but he always leaves a little mystery. You get into his life and you can see it with the way that he writes, he paints pictures so clearly and in such a poetic manner.

Really it just shocks me how seamlessly Hanif weaves in his personal stories into the life and legend of ATCQ or any music that he’s talking about. I recently-ish read his previous effort, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, which was a 5-star effort and realized that the man is a genius-level music writer. In Go Ahead in the Rain, Hanif's illuminations of learning about what it meant to be cool from the perspective of the uncool and how cool people don't know they're cool but still change the game, shook me. I really liked how he illuminated the ups and downs, highs and lows of brotherhood and what it means to be a friend and stick together and how not all the people who are talented and who create waves get accredited through popular channels, but they're accredited in the communities they helped create and develop. I also liked how he broke down that Tip, Phife, Ali and Jarobi are just huge nerds who like to experiment with music and create fun shit filled with inside jokes, but how much hard work goes into that and who really rides when it's time to go for gold. It all really got to me.

As much as Hanif's ability to draw you in is a gift, it's also a curse. Being that this is a love letter to A Tribe Called Quest, it was bound to border on the inappropriate at points. All love letters are slightly inappropriate. I hate even using the word "inappropriate" - but yo, real talk - this book felt mad inappropriate at times; let me get into it. There are moments where he's talking to Phife's mother via his letter format asking questions that as a fan/friend, it's hard to digest due to the question's personal nature. Personal on both sides, personal from Hanif's point of view and personal from an inquiring minds point of view. You know she's going to read it and it felt real personal; and yeah she okie doke'd it, and I don't want to reduce it to the fanboy nature of things, but it really felt too personal for someone's mom's real life. It felt really fucked up to me due to the fact that yeah we may feel like we know a lot about our favourite artists, but do we? Can we? Should we? Reaching out to their parents, etc. etc. to share what that person meant to you, it can be difficult and invasive on so many levels and maybe I'm just taking it to a level; I mean, maybe I'm taking it in some type of way. But it didn't sit right with me.

Yes, it is a personal story, a love letter, and yes he's pouring his heart out - but I mean, I don't know. It seems like a fine line is walked here and only the brave walk it. On a relational level; I really struggled with the passing of one of my best friends, and that person was my best friend, not just someone I heard about, they directly greatly influenced my life. At their untimely passing, I had so many questions, so many things I wanted to say to his family. Did I? There are some boundaries that you try to maintain out of respect and not interjecting your own shit into someone else's pain. It will feel uncomfortable to do so. But that's just me; there are people willing to go above and beyond that call; because it means something to them to do so; something different on a different type of level and you can see that's what this book is, but it doesn't make it any less uncomfortable at those points.

Hanif's ability to be candid and intimate with his inquisitions was something I loved and hated; maybe because I was too afraid to do it at points in my own life, trying to reserve something, preserve the feelings of others, I don't know.. that's what troubled me about the book but also what I found brave and beautiful and intriguing and apart of what makes Hanif such a great writer. It made me cry when he wrote to Phife's mother. It made me cry when he wrote about how the snub for Thank You 4 Your Service hit Tip on an emotional level because his heart wasn't all that into performing at the Grammys or on stage without his friend, his brother, the five foot assassin, right there beside him; but he did, and they got snubbed and it hurt. It brought about so many different kinds of pain; the pain of growing apart from family, growing in different directions from friends, which all of us have before.. it illustrated how growing apart from someone can affect those left behind when that person has departed from this life.

Overall, Hanif Abdurraqib carved out a space for his story, directly relatable to Tribe's music and also completely fitting of the juxtaposition of the group and their impact on an era of music. For some people, telling a story about a band/group that crisscrosses your own personal life history would be a fatal writing flaw because it would be easily susceptible to many lazy writing traps: giving too much over to your own self-interests, straying too far from the base, but for Hanif that is absolutely never the case. It’s what makes his writing magnetic, in my opinion. He’s the kind of music writer, music writers should aspire to be.

I love how he delved into the history and importance of having a crew. I love that he gave us some backstory on the formation and influence of the Native Tongues as a unit and on each rapper that joined during that period of time. I love that he doesn’t disparage anyone, including those who could definitely be disparaged. I love how much he clearly highlighted the talent of the influential femcees present in those days and times.

Go Ahead in the Rain, the shit was powerful, it was mesmerizing, it took you on a journey through the origins of hip hop's fab 4. It really brought you into Hanif's evolution and understanding of the role that A Tribe Called Quest played in his life and the lives of so many. I really felt the magic of the words here. There were beautiful segments where he talks to each artist directly and it's hard-hitting to read but he doesn't pull any punches; he really gets into his emotional bag with this one. It's a fantastic read.

[Jacob Hoefer · Rating 5 out of 5]

3 books by Hanif and all 3 have made me cry

[Jerrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Abdurraqib is a very gifted writer. With amazing elegance and verve, he weaves the story of the early rap group A Tribe Called Quest with observations on race and culture. The group was an important part of his childhood. There are aspects of memoir as well when he relates how the group’s music impacted him at pivotal points in his youth. I am not a music lover and certainly don’t listen to much rap, but the language and passion of the author kept me rapt. 4.5⭐️

[Jimmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love reading reviews on Goodreads because they're not professional reviews. That means they're entangled with memories, hopes, expectations, flaws. The personal lives of the reviewer often adds to my understanding of a book, of how a book could appeal to certain people. Often I will love a review of a book I have absolutely no intention of reading because I'm more intrigued by the review than the book.

This book approaches music journalism in much the same way as my favorite reviews. Hanif Abdurraqib is one of my favorite writers thanks to his They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, which I read last year. Then I learned that this book existed, an entire book on one musical group, A Tribe Called Quest, and I realized it's one of those books that I absolutely would not have read if I didn't already love the author, since I didn't know or care much about ATCQ (I do now). But because it was Abdurraqib, and because I knew he is never afraid to invite us into his world, I knew this would be about so much more than one musical group, and I was right. His personal connection with ATCQ and his passion for them is what drew me in and what makes this book special.

Abdurraqib is such a good writer that he makes me wish all music journalism was as impassioned, as brave and unafraid to branch out from the strictly musical to the broader world of where that music came from, the streets and culture where the music takes on new meaning. Throughout this book, I was taken not only through the journey of one hip hop group's rise and fall, but also the neighborhoods where Abdurraqib grew up, the language of Jet magazines, Kool-Aid, and Knicks games. This book is like a mix-tape. Each song is infused with more meaning because of who made it and the thought behind it. This is such a personal book that also admirably broadens to a time and place.

I did feel that Abdurraqib falls a little bit into sentimentality and repetition at points that he doesn't fall into in his other book, but these are minor gripes. I loved this book and want to read everything he wrote, and you should too.

[Darryl Suite · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have you ever read a book that seems like it was tailor-made for you? This is that book for me. I'm in love. This had everything I'm looking for in a book; a gift for my music-obsessed heart and mind. I walked away with a greater appreciation for the rap group A Tribe Called Quest, who I already stanned. But that's not all it provided; this book was filled with hard-hitting and tell-it-like-is social commentary, told with stimulating and delicious prose. The author's previous essay collection 'They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us' is one of the best books I've read this year. Go Ahead in the Rain is not too far behind. *Stunned*

[Lindsay · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was everything I wanted from a music history and has really got me thinking about writing about music. I've been feeling dreamy all week thinking about this book, made a playlist for it on Google Play (Abdurraqib said he made a playlist on Spotify of songs sampled by Tribe, so you should definitely check that out), and wish now that Abdurraqib could write all history for me. This was great, too, because I think I may be a hair older than the author, but we're essentially the same age, so it was cool to get his take on things as someone who came of age in the same era. Anywho, if you love music, love reading about music, love Tribe, are only a little familiar with Tribe, have no idea who Tribe is, love history and social commentary, love memoir, love beautiful writing...this book is for you.

[Becky · Rating 2 out of 5]

My husband really likes A Tribe Called Quest, so when I saw this book on sale with Audible, I picked it up, thinking that it would be a good listen for some long car trips we had planned.

So a couple weeks ago, we went on one of those long car trips, and we listened to (most of) this, and reader, we did not like this book about A Tribe Called Quest.

For one thing, it was sooooooo boring. It just meandered around aimlessly for large chunks of time, talking about things that were somehow probably relevant to something to do with ATCQ, maybe? I don't know, because when the narrative started wandering, so did my attention span. One of these wanderings was when we decided to call it quits on this. In discussing the break up of the group, the narrative swerves off to talk about Otis Redding's tragic death, and I fully listened to this part because OTIS REDDING. And while the WAY that it talked about the tragedy of his death, and the survivor's guilt experienced by Ben Cauley, the single survivor of the crash that killed Redding and 6 others, was beautifully heartbreaking and made me tear up, it also really annoyed me that the entire sideline story was included just so that the author could make a forced connection between the "loss" of a musical group, and presumably the loss to music itself due to the dissolution of ATCQ, with several actually tragic premature deaths.

And that just felt really wrong to use this tragedy that way, in mine and my husband's opinions. (We actually talked about this for a decent amount of time because we were both like WHAT THE FUCK?) So that's where we stopped listening.

It was also really difficult to follow this on audio. Abdurraqib included several letters in the book, either from or to or about someone in Tribe, and it was really confusing the first couple of times this happened, because there was no context or header or info given to inform the listener that we haven't just lapsed into some weird 2nd person Twilight Zone, in fact we are listening to someone's letter to someone else... It was only after the signature of the first one that I realized, and then I had to replay the whole thing (in my head, I'm not a martyr) to add the missing context and make it make sense. The second time I figured it out a little sooner, and after that I got it almost immediately, but it was still really kind of annoying. How hard is it to preface that chapter or section with "Letter from {person} to {other person}"?

The parts where Abdurraqib actually talked about ATCQ, and their formation and their relationships and their lives and such were interesting, but honestly, for me, I'm not all that invested in this group to feel like that was enough to make up for the rest of it. I liked parts of it, but not nearly enough. It was well written, but I couldn't find a tree in the forest, you know?

[Bonnie G. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating twining together of the history of Tribe, the history of rap and of Black music more broadly, the history of Abdurraqib, and the history of America. The language here is spectacular, Abdurraqib's music knowledge is encyclopedic, and this man can write. This is a deeply personal book that ends up being an exploration of what it means, to be a Black man, of all the different forms that can take while still sharing so many commonalities. I thought it dragged in the middle a bit and never regained the energy of the first half (which was unbelievably good) but it was still excellent.

[Royal · Rating 5 out of 5]

The tiny yet mighty "to" gives the book a great deal of its magic. The "to" is the difference between reading a wonderfully written biography of A Tribe Called Quest and reading this book. This book is an intimate conversation overheard, a love letter found, a confession, a confrontation, a monument, and an ode in addition to being a wonderfully written biography of A Tribe Called Quest. Hanif talks to ATCQ across time and through impassable thresholds in a manner as earnest as it is trenchant.

Hanif's deft layering of contexts situates the reader in the room where the crew reunites to reminisce, recapping and revealing new glimpses into what happened all those years ago. After learning about earlier approaches to sampling from this book, I can situate Hanif's world-building in that lineage. Hanif gives us a trajectory and analysis of A Tribe Called Quest and its impact while contextualizing the music trends, social climate, political events, and his own experience. The book has a noticeable rhythm to it, which felt both right and necessary.

[Sarah Booth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got this book from an audible.com sale because listening to the provided snippet had a lot of fascinating things to say about music. Having not being a rap or hip hop fan at all, I gave it a try and discovered something richly imbued with jazz, story, growing up in the 70s and 80s and message. I've recently started listening to A Tribe Called Quests album "People's instinctive Travels" and have been really enjoying it. Weird for a middle aged white woman, but it you keep your mind open you can find some fascinating things that you just might like. Abdurraqib is a fabulous writer. He could probably write about clipping one's toenails and make it interesting and relevant. The book is a love poem to a band and an education in music. I really enjoyed this book and it's so far from my usual choice of reading material that it would seem a bad bet, but you can't mess with brilliance.

[Benjamin Feld · Rating 2 out of 5]

Abdurraqib's book was a disappointment, to be honest. I grew up listening to ATCQ, and a book about their brilliant and trailblazing music, and the dynamics within the group, got me pretty excited to read this book. However, it did not come close to expectations. It is repetitive, which is saying something for such a short book. It is simplistic, only really focusing on Q-Tip and Phife. Jarobi and Ali Shaheed Muhammad are literally mentioned a few times in the book. I mean, I get Jarobi, as he was always on the outskirts, but Ali S-M was an integral part of the group since inception, and is nowhere to be seen in this book. Basically, the book is a love letter to Q-Tip, who the author views as the creative genius behind (ATCQ), which is partially true, and Phife, who the author loves because of his skill and underdog nature in never quite getting his due before his early death. Okay, that is fine for a thesis, but Abdurraqib literally repeats the same 'love letters' to Phife and Q-Tip throughout the book, hitting the same points ad nauseum. It doesn't seem like much research went into this book, and as a whole, I was expecting something more along the quality of Will Ashon's "Chamber Music" about the Wu-Tang Clan, which was a far superior book. While I applaud Abdurraqib's focus on personalizing the music of ATCQ through telling his backstory, it simply isn't a very interesting story, and does not do justice to the members of the group (including engineers, producers, record execs, literally anybody not named Q-Tip, Phife, or Cheryl Boyce-Taylor).

[jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

hanif + atcq = jazz (they've got)

even the way one exhales after a good laugh rumbles the walls of a room can sound like bass flooding out of the speakers.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not really about Low End Theory* - well, it is, but it’s also a mini history of rap, a memoir, a meditation on death and grief, and lots more. The writing unfolds in a very infectious way - here is a dude who clearly loves music and it means so much to him that it touches every other part of everything he thinks and does. The prose is just beautiful, gliding between subjects and forms. I loved it.

Also, it’s just such a nice feeling when you can relate so strongly to someone with whom, on the surface at least, you have so little in common, other than the fact we both like this record and borrowed CDs from the library to copy to cassettes in the ‘90s.

*I've just realised the book doesn't even say that this is what it is, so I'm not sure where I got this idea? I guess just super scarred by 33⅓ books to believe that's the only format music criticism gets published in.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

“We are nothing if not for our histories”

It’s like reading someone’s personal journal. As the writing is so open full of love, hope and fear. While dissecting what the subject means to them. His prose like poetry.

The book is exactly what the title promises. Notes and letters. How each facet has theory or defining moment.

Even if just a casual fan of the group or itms songs and albums. This book spells out illustriously how important they are to the writer, hip-hop, culture and the community in large. It cements their legend and strength m. Offers a dissection of sorts that delves into the philosophical impression also the way the writer makes anything personal and also philosophical and how he connects the dots through it al.

As he relays his stories and memories it reminds us of the songs and bring many of our own memories to mind. When things were easier, simpler and music was our currency and language of sorts growing up. Saying the things we either wanted to say or teaching us things we wanted

It shows for some critics and fans This is holy their own religion almost. Truly how they relate to the world and how an examination of what they love or obsess over helps them find themselves and helps define them.

The book is insanely quotable


How much work went into how starting mixing messages, opinions and theory with the music of others as support to stand on. Full of creativity, emotions and outlooks. How the songs were like the gospel and spirituals to the world with some punchlines to keep some of it fun and light while others heavy.

How it graduated to them making their own beats and music. Taking ownership of their sound and finding their own identity

This book offers not only a Breakdown of what the music means and meant to them. Not to mention how it might have affected the audience at large. Decoding it and it’s language as well as facts and theories melding them all together. As a biography of sorts that comes across as a love letter full of intellect and emotion.

How what seems so simple, so easy for some will have others obsessed with how they did it and how many it will affect.

Strong enough to change lives and decisions and it’s only supposed to be for entertainment and enjoyment. Maybe most don’t get caught up or taken it as seriously

[Jolene · Rating 3 out of 5]

It turns out this book wasn't for me, which I should have expected when I jumped on the bandwagon. I'm into Hanif Abdurraqib, and I love learning about pop culture history, but I also knew basically nothing about A Tribe Called Quest before reading this book.

That said, if you're at all interested in the history of rap music, you'll get something out of it. Personally, I enjoyed Adurraqib's prose -- his poetic celebrations of hip hop and rap, especially in connection to protest and community-building. The asides about music award shows and police brutality and grief and the changing nature of close friendships make this a powerful listen, even for those unfamiliar with A Tribe Called Quest's legacy.

They're definitely on my rotating playlist now though.

First line: "In the beginning, from somewhere south of anywhere I come from, lips pressed the edge of a horn, and a horn was blown."

[chasc.taylor_reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25 Stars ✨

A beautiful and nostalgic collection of essays in regards to 90’s hip hop 🫶🏾. This discusses music as well as its cultural, media, and street-level impacts.

Go Ahead in the Rain is perfect for music lovers and those who enjoy the author’s passionate, yet thought-provoking writing.

“The way you, with impeccable rhythm, hung each bit of language from the lights in that room and let me see them, even with my eyes closed. There are beats that happen in between the breaks of words that I think most poets don’t tend to understand. There is a way for a reader to manipulate silence so that it is no longer silence but something drawing a listener toward a brief and breathless anticipation that, too, is a type of beat.”

[Adam Fitzwalter · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thoughtful gift from Harrison, Aaron and Elliot. Both a critical biography of Tribe and a poetic search to define what Tip, Phife, Native Tongues, jazz and hip-hop have meant to the author. This is a shape-shifting feeling. I’m with every insight Hanif Abdurraqib offers- optimistic yet realistic, nostalgic yet reductive, sharp yet stuck. I have been gifted a new listening list (check out Chi Ali!) and several new perspectives on one of my favourite groups.

[Sentimental Surrealist · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full disclosure: I am a big-time dork for the early ‘90s east coast boom bap sound, especially if it’s heavy on jazz samples, since I’m also a big-time dork for jazz. This, of course, means I’m a big-time dork for A Tribe Called Quest. The Low End Theory and Midnight Marauders can go toe-to-toe with Illmatic and Enter the Wu-Tang and Stress: The Extinction Agenda and The Infamous and... shit, you name it. I’ll even stick up for Beats, Rhymes, & Life.

I also love a very specific type of music writing, one I don’t see often. Obviously I don’t mean the Billboard puff pieces that’ll praise a song for its “club feel” or something similarly meaningless. What’s more, I’m not talking about the standard-issue Rolling Stone/VH1 stuff, which comes off like hagiography and tends to place musicians in museums. A Rolling Stone writer can tell me that the Who got the crowd to stand up at Woodstock, but can they tell me what the Who mean to them? Their personal history with the band, their experience with them, the exact appeal? So much writing about music plays at a certain objectivity, but I’m not in it for that, because of how easily it reduces to a series of dull bullet points. The Who had four guys in the band, they sold this many records, they did rock operas and famous live shows, Pete Townshend got into spirituality and synthesizers Keith Moon blew his drums up onstage that one time. Ok, fine, but what do you feel when you listen to the music?

I’m also a big fan of Hanif Abdurraqib. Did I bury the lede there or what? Regardless, They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us is one of the most moving books about music I’ve ever read. I mean, I was moved by an essay about My Chemical Romance, and I don’t even like that band. Abdurraqib is skillful at weaving it all together: the sound and story of the band, his own experience listening to them and how this experience ties to his own life, and the bigger sociological questions - less Woodstock myth, more Black Lives Matter reality. He gives you the full picture. The music, his own life, the currents of history swirling around him. The total effect is terrific; he and Jessica Hopper are my two favorite people currently writing about music, maybe even my two favorite music critics ever. I guess what I’m saying is these three factors form like Voltron, if you don’t mind me mixing my classic east coast rap crews, into a book that I was predisposed to love before I even picked it up.

And love it I did, although I have a complaint. A certain Midnight Marauders skit informs us that A Tribe Called Quest has four members. Q-Tip, Phife Dawg, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, and Jarobi. A, E, I, O, U. And sometimes Y. Tip and Phife get plenty of recognition in this book. Jarobi is barely a footnote, but that made sense to me, since the dude was barely even a member. His first verse on a Quest album was on 2016’s We Got It Here, if that gives you a sense. But Ali Shaheed Muhammad, who stuck around from the beginning and who worked alongside Q-Tip in the producers’ booth, remains a cypher through the book. You get a strong sense of Tip’s and Phife’s difficult relationship: how Tip had to at first drag the teenage Phife into the studio (it’s why he barely appears on People’s Travels), how Phife pushed himself on the next two albums to match Tip and turned in some of the all-time great rap verses in the process (see “We Can Get Down” and “Check the Rhime” for the most famous examples), how Tip’s increasing ambition left Phife feeling sidelined and probably broke the up the band. Yet I wanted to know where Muhammad stood in all this. Was he happy to create beats alongside Q-Tip, happy to follow the man’s direction? Did he feel any burning ambition of his own? Granted, this book doesn’t present itself as a biography of Quest, but I feel like this was a bit of a missed opportunity.

Other than that, though? Goddamn. Abdurraqib pulls off a skillful balancing act throughout this book. He’s always honest about Quest’s work; how he feels about the individual albums, what they mean to him, the fact that he didn’t feel Beats, Rhymes & Life and The Love Movement as much as the first three. On the other hand, he gives you a good sense of the albums; where the group was at mentally when they made them, the frictions that powered their early work and led them to a premature breakup, the way the public responded to them, the way the group members (Phife especially) grew and changed as their music did. This is what separates the best writing about music from the worst: Abdurraqib’s considered subjectivity, informed and yet always honest.

The comedian Scott Aukerman has a great quote. I’m probably going to mangle it, but it goes a little something like this. “It’s always beautiful when someone shows you part of your soul.” There’s a lot of truth to that, and it’s what Abdurraqib does here. He gives you a look into his love of the group, and with it, the forces that shaped his appreciation for the music. You don’t even have to like rap to like this book. Though, I mean, it definitely helps.

[Richard Noggle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hanif's new book is a solid fusion of cultural criticism (as he works his way through Tribe's discography, influence, and dissolution) and personal reflection (as he charts his own relationship to Tribe's music and what it's meant to him over the years, complete with moving letters where he addresses Q-Tip and Phife directly). It's perhaps a little stronger in the latter than the former, and Hanif's digressive tendencies occasionally lose me, but I can't wait for his fourth book.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

On rhythm, brotherhood, and underdogs.

It’s been a couple of weeks since I put this book down. And I’m still not sure if it’s a love letter or an elegy. Perhaps because it flows with chronology it’s both. But even then, the word « chronology » falls short. There’s too much aggregation, by which I mean lineage, inheritance—something we now refer to as « culture. »

I am sure that it has some of the best opening pages I’ve read. And that there’s sweetness and soundtracks and solidarity. There are ideas about language as instrument, the genius of sampling, even some underlying afrofuturism. Then there’s the question he always returns to—what really is the “low end?” And have we even reached it yet? That, I’m not ruining for you.


There’s also dichotomy outside of generic ambiguity. It’s most obviously personified through Phife and Q, and meditations about the space to do your own thing and the confines of holding it all on your shoulders. There’s a love for bridge building, whether it’s across generations or coasts.

But it’s not just the letters of bereavement to Phife and Tribe that make me question the eulogic aspect of this book. Albums are almost characters in and of themselves. And what first seems like love letters—on community and finding your place in it—turns into eulogies (or tributes? Homages?) on something now lost to the immediacy of streaming services.


If I’m being honest, Tribe was never a favorite. I’ve always been one of those « I prefer Pharcyde » types. But coming to this book out of curiosity and not as a fan ((and falling completely in love with it)) attests to this author’s magic. He’s managed to create something poetic, political, cultural, historiographical, anthropological, and on and on. So, I’ll give it to him—Tribe was ahead of their time sonically. Phife was a poet. And hip hop, rap, jazz, and everything in between is inherited.

It’s not easy to immortalize a person, let alone the intangible. And with all the flowers in A Fortune for Your Disaster, I’m tempted to say this is Hanif’s bouquet.

[Robin · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favourite bits of music writing always end up being when someone goes to bat for the coldly forsaken record that gets made after all the “classic” ones in an artist’s discog - even better if it’s a mediocre solo album that no one listened to. So I really like that Hanif Abdurraqib lays out the consensus on Tribe and how their music was being received at the time of release, but then very tenderly veers away, revisiting the stuff no one had time for - except him.

I’m sure other people resonated with Phife’s solo album as much as he did and saw the cracks of goodness in The Love Movement as well, but his defense of these records speaks to how much more special music can be when you feel isolated with it. I loved these parts about our loyalties as listeners and how we take on the flaws of our favourite artists when no one else will.

Very much reminds me of all the times I argued myself into liking records like Animal Collective’s Painting With, or all those years I spent telling everyone that post-Britpop was very good actually.

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished the A Tribe Called Quest book on the bus going to work this morning. I cried a little bit.
I walked past a bar on the way home from work today. A Tribe Called Quest was playing.
I cried a little bit.

ADDED:
For every generation, there are usually only a handful of bands that can truly be described as the proverbial "the only band that matters." And, in the 90s, one of that handful was A Tribe Called Quest. And in his fantastic book GO AHEAD IN THE RAIN, poet Hanif Abdurraqib captures those never-to-be repeated heady days "..when I was a teenager/before I had status and before I had a pager." I loved this book and I cried with this book. RIP Phife Dawg.

[Phil Overeem · Rating 5 out of 5]

I checked it out of the local library. It is so good I am buying a copy to keep close. Among the many things Abdurraqib pierces the bullseye on, the eerie and perfect arrival of the final ATCQ album is explored with eerie and perfect grace.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

As the Tribe flies high like a dove....

[Caroline Todd · Rating 5 out of 5]

The world is a better place with hanif abdurraqib in it

[Kariana!!! · Rating 5 out of 5]

No one inspires me to love quite like Hanif Abdurraqib

(I read this book nearly a year ago and JUST realized I spelled his name soooo wrong 💔💔💔)

(take my degree away)