Ken's Top 10 of 2016 - #6: A Tribe Called Quest - We got it from Here... Thank You 4 Your service

To be completely fair, I could be overrating this a bit because of what it's not: absolutely horrible. With very few exceptions, whenever a rap artist from the 80s and 90s releases a comeback album, it's pretty much guaranteed to be universally horrible. In an attempt to sound current, they all seem to get stuck on what Puff Daddy did in 1998 and just have an R&B chorus over everything.

Which is why A Tribe Called Quest's latest, We got it from Here... Thank You 4 Your service, should be horrible. It's their first album in almost 20 years. That's never a good sign, regardless of what genre you're looking at. Plus, it was released after the death of a major member. After Phife Dawg's death back in March, they could have just rushed this out to capitalize on it. Instead, they took their time and released one of the best albums of the year, and maybe even the best hip hop album in years. To be fair, there aren't any "Scenario"s on here, but they aren't trying to make one. Instead of A Tribe Called Quest trying to sound like the rap of 2016, they sound like what A Tribe Called Quest should sound like in 2016. It's a natural evolution for one of the pioneers of modern rap. Even the guest appearances (Talib Kewli, Andre 3000, Busta Rhymes, Jack White, Elton John(?), etc) seem natural. Unfortunately, this will have to be the last we ever hear from this group. At least they're going out the best way possible.