One listen to the frenetic drumming and strutting live bassline on one of Q-Tip’s tracks reveals that the American artist is on a mission to create original music as timeless as the tracks he used to sample once upon a time. It’s also obvious that the title of his latest album is no accident. “The Renaissance is significant because for some time now people have questioned the integrity of hip-hop,” he reveals. “I feel like the time is ideal for something that has a revisionist spirit to it.”
Taking the same type of nonconformist risks as Stevie Wonder, John Lennon and the mavericks of other music genres, Q-Tip has always gone left when it comes to his position in hip-hop culture. The 20-year-old has emceed about vegetarianism, French expatriates and domestic violence at a time when (then as now) other more standard rappers’ topics were marching lockstep in comparison.
