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

216 Pages·2019·0.8 MB·English

by  Hanif Abdurraqib

GO AHEAD IN THE RAIN
AmericAn music series
David Menconi, Jessica Hopper, Oliver Wang, Editors
Go Ahead
in the Rain
NOTES TO A TRIBE
CALLED QUEST
HANIF ABDURRAQIB
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS PRESS   AUSTIN
Copyright © 2019 by Hanif Abdurraqib
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
First edition, 2019
The author would like to thank Cheryl Boyce-Taylor for generously granting
permission to excerpt from “A Woman Speaks” and reprint in full “Devouring
the Light, 1968.”
“Do Not Forget Old Friends” by Leonard Cohen, collected in Selected Poems:
1956–1968. Copyright © 1974 Leonard Cohen, used by permission of The Wylie
Agency LLC.
Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to:
Permissions
University of Texas Press
P.O. Box 7819
Austin, TX 78713-7819
utpress.utexas.edu/rp-form
♾ The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of Ansi/nisO
Z39.48-1992 (r1997) (Permanence of Paper).
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Abdurraqib, Hanif, author.
Title: Go ahead in the rain : notes to A Tribe Called Quest / Hanif Abdurraqib.
Description: Austin : University of Texas Press, 2019.
Identifiers: Lccn 2018031799
isBn 978-1-4773-1648-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)
isBn 978-1-4773-1843-0 (library e-book)
isBn 978-1-4773-1844-7 (non-library e-book)
Subjects: LcsH: Tribe Called Quest (Musical group) | Rap
musicians—United States—Biography.
Classification: Lcc mL421.T762 W55 2019 | DDc 782.421649092/2—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018031799
doi:10.7560/316481
Contents
1 The Paths of Rhythm 1
2 Once Upon a Time in Queens 13
3 Push It Along 32
4 The Low End 50
5 Award Tour 64
6 1nce Again 84
7 The Source Cover 106
8 Lament 124
9 Documentary 139
10 Family Business 153
11 Common Ground 170
12 Thank You 4 Your Service 187
Acknowledgments 207

GO AHEAD IN THE RAIN

CHAPTER ONE
The Paths of Rhythm
In the beginning, from somewhere south of anywhere I come
from, lips pressed the edge of a horn, and a horn was blown.
In the beginning before the beginning, there were drums,
and hymns, and a people carried here from another here, and
a language stripped and a new one learned, with the songs
to go with it. When slaves were carried to America, stolen
from places like West Africa and the greater Congo River,
with them came a musical tradition. The tradition, generally
rooted in one-line melodies and call-and-response, existed to
allow the rhythms within the music to reflect African speech
patterns—in part so that everyone who had a voice could join
in on the music making, which made music a community act
instead of an exclusive one.
Once in America, where the slaves were sent to work in
1