Return of the Tribal Son
Jan 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Bill Murphy
FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES
Along with the cutting-edge musicians who make up his live band (which also includes Chris Sholar on guitar and DJ Scratch on turntables), Q-Tip tentatively plans to reprise appearances from two of the heavies who appeared on Open — namely, Outkast's Andre 3000 (who drops a guest vocal on “Sexy”) and D'Angelo (who plays keys and sings background on “I Believe”). While there's a possibility that a revamped “Sexy” will end up instead on Andre's next album, “I Believe” is definitely going through a part-two configuration, due to its widespread visibility online when Open originally leaked.
“That originally came together with me and D'Angelo just vibing,” Tip confers. “He came out to my house to do that, and we just found our way to that groove. I really want to finish another version of that because I feel the song is just too strong to leave off the album.”
J Dilla, aka Jay Dee, in particular seems to have left a profound impression on the sonic direction of The Renaissance, and although he may or may not have some of his trademark hyper-syncopated beats on the finished version, he still shines through in spirit. “His whole thing was getting the right kit,” Tip intones, his voice slightly hushed with admiration, “and having the kits in tune to what was happening. That's what I picked up from him. We both used the MPC at the same time, too. He did everything on that, but on Amplified, we mixed to tape, and I think I might do that again on the next album. Tape can be a cumbersome thing, but it does have a certain frequency and warmth that just cannot be duplicated. I mean, Pro Tools and tape are both good — to the layman's ear, you can't really pick up the difference too much — but to us, you know, you can hear it.”
As it turns out, if there's one track here that captures the essence of The Ummah — the production team founded by Q-Tip, Ali Shaheed Muhammad and J Dilla — it would have to be the stutter-funk lope of “Ofishal,” which features Tip on turntable cuts and a crispy live rhythm track that recalls vintage Tribe from the Beats, Rhymes and Life days.
“I have a line in there about percussion being a weapon,” Tip says and then rhymes, “I feel what the beat does/ People fuck with me 'cause /When this song ends /I become what the beat was.” He pauses again to let the thought sink in. “It's just about trying to ascend and let people know where my head is at with the music. I take this very seriously, and this is officially what I do. I'm an artist, and just the wordplay of it all — I'm trying to fit into the beat. I really try to become that instrument with my voice. I really believe in the percussive sense, and in a real musical sense. My voice has a little bit of a musicality to it, so I try to approach it like that.”
Live From the Living Room
Recording engineer Blair Wells first hooked up with Q-Tip through ace producer Bob Power, who manned the console for A Tribe Called Quest, The Roots, D'Angelo and many more. “Q-Tip was looking for some help to upgrade his home studio,” Wells recalls, “so Bob put us in touch for me to help him make that transition. We got to know each other through Kamaal the Abstract, and then I started engineering Open. At the time, he had just moved into a new house, so he was starting again from scratch and really wanted to build a bigger facility.”
Initially, acoustics designer Fran Manzella was brought in to build a full-on basement studio with several different recording spaces and a large control room. A slab was poured and the basic infrastructure installed, but Q-Tip wanted to continue working, so his living room became the main recording space while construction continued. “We spent a lot of time experimenting with where the best place was to put the drums,” Wells says. “There's not much room to move around in the studio due to all the records Q-Tip has, and the layout in his house is pretty wacky, with certain areas having huge high ceilings. Once we had the drums put in the right place, it definitely didn't sound like a recording studio, but it had a really nice character to it.”
Q-Tip liked the intimacy of the setup, especially when the full band was set up and the room completely miked. “We have some bleeding because you can't get that much separation,” Tip says, “Everything was cool because we had Dis and regular room mics, so I could level it off. If I knew I needed some separation on the bass or the guitar or the keyboards, I'd use the DI signal. We used the mics to get the atmosphere of the room because of those big ceilings.”
Q-Tip Kit
Computer, DAW, hardware
Apple Mac G5 dual 2.5 GHz computer
Digidesign Pro Tools|HD3 Accel, 192 I/Os
Prism Sound Dream AD-124 converters
Turntables, DJ software, DJ mixer
Pioneer CDJ-1000 CD turntables
Serato Scratch Live software
Technics SL-1200s turntables
Vestax PMC-06 ProA VCA DJ mixer
Synths, instruments
ARP Odyssey, Solina String Ensemble
Clavia ddrum4 SE system
Fender Rhodes Bass, Rhodes suitcase Mark I
Gibson ES-325 and Les Paul guitars (with Line 6 Vetta guitar combo amp and Echo Pro modeling effects processor)
Ludwig Vistalite drum kit
Moog Minimoog
Roland Fantom X-series workstation, Juno-106
Wurlitzer electric piano
Mics, preamps, EQ, compressors, effects
AKG C 451, D 12 and D 112 drum mics
Chandler Limited LTD-1 expanded 10-series EQ/preamp, LTD-2 compressor, TG1 compressor, TG2 preamp
Coles 4038 ribbon mics
Empirical Labs EL-8 Distressors
Lawson L47 mic
Manley Reference Gold vocal mic
Sennheiser MD421 dynamic mics
Shure SM57 mics
Universal Audio 1176LN compressor/limiter
Studio monitors
Genelec 1031s
PMC AML1 active monitor system
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