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While some artists, like Vince Staples, are taking a more measured approach to their Grammy nomination reactions, A Tribe Called Quest’s Q-Tip is pulling no punches in a full-on tirade against the nomination committee after We Got It From Here… Thank You 4 Your Service, the band’s final album as a group, was not acknowledged for any major awards.
Tip wasn’t appeased by the news that only women and people of color had been nominated for Album Of The Year either. “Y’all think it’s some kind of caveat that no white man is nominated for no major categories,” he railed. “We were the most Black-cultured group out. That’s all we stood on. This last album we put out — the last Tribe album — it stands with everybody else’s sh*t that’s up there.”
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While he was careful to show love to the artists who are nominated, he directed his ire to the Grammy committee itself. “After y’all got us out there to perform last year and close the sh*t and you don’t give us no nominations?” he questions. “I’m tired of f*cking biting my tongue all the time and trying to be nice and sh*t. I’mma say the sh*t that n—-s always be saying, and [I] don’t be f*cking saying it. Yes, I’m hot — get off my lawn, whatever!”
Although Q-Tip’s beef with the Grammys feels legitimate, A Tribe Called Quest is probably more the victim of poor timing than anything. Their album’s release at the end of the year last year made it ineligible for the 2017 Grammys, and they had no way of knowing that Jay-Z, Kendrick Lamar, Rapsody, and Tyler The Creator would all come out with masterfully produced and heartfelt albums this year. Factor in recency bias on the part of voters, which strikes every artist and every genre at some point or another, and Tribe’s final album becomes yet another casualty of unfortunate circumstances.
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