On Wednesday, the nominees for the 2022 Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction class were announced and some hip-hop icons made the cut, including Eminem, Rage Against The Machine, and A Tribe Called Quest. Now, Tribe’s Q-Tip has spoken about the nomination, revealing that he’s happy about it but indicating that it’s a bittersweet moment for him.
In an interview with Billboard the day after the nominations were revealed, Q-Tip said, “I was pleased, [but] I wish my man [Phife Dawg] was here.”
Phife Dawg, a founding member of A Tribe Called Quest, died in 2016 at 45 years old.
Elsewhere during the conversation, Q-Tip spoke about how he believes A Tribe Called Quest helped bridge the gap between rock and hip-hop for many people, especially white listeners. He said, “I was just saying to LL Cool J the thing about Tribe is we played in front of more rock audiences than rap audiences. Just being on tour with Smashing Pumpkins, Hole, Green Day, Beastie Boys, and our first show we opened for Big Audio Dynamite — at our time, we kinda helped bring white audiences to hip-hop. So it’s overall good. I feel like the story of music and music’s evolution can’t happen without hip-hop artists.”
Check out the full interview here.
