Q-Tip

Jonathan Davis, a.k.a Q-Tip, has spent the past nine years in a kind of musical wilderness, beset by label issues and unable to release much of anything (although his distinctive voice has been heavily used by Budweiser). However, from listening to the new album by the ancestor of the less serious side of conscious rap, you'd hardly know he'd gone anywhere. This is not to say that The Renaissance is tremendously different from the last record he put out, 1999's Amplified. It's got a similar relaxed flow and gentility that doesn't sacrifice funk, and Davis still knows how to intellectualize a beat, making "jazzy" more a descriptor than an insult. But what does it say when the only song on the album that really inspires the listener to attentiveness, "Move," is also the only one Davis didn't produce?

J Dilla supplied the speedy, yelpy, yet soulful sound that fuels Davis to his fastest and most pleasurable vocal performance on the record. Much of the rest of the stuff here, while skillful, doesn't really demand that you do anything but relax and leave it on in the background. Even if some songs, like "Official," seem to be exceptions, with hiccupy, gentle beats unlike anything else out there right now, they never develop into more than an initial mild pleasure. It's not that The Renaissance is innocuous, but it's more of a reincarnation as a lesser form than a rebirth.

—Hillary Brown
11.12.08

When the best rapper/producer in hip-hop history spends almost a decade without a record on the shelves (despite his best efforts), it has to be considered a crime -- if not a tragedy. Difficult to tell, though, is why Q-Tip was bounced to five different labels within six years. He never pronounced himself angry about the situation, saying only that he continued to work, reportedly recording three full albums that were never released. (At least one of those, 2003's Kamaal the Abstract, was a reality, since it was only denied a release after promos were sent out.) His long-awaited return on The Renaissance is no disappointment, offering more of the same understated, aqueous grooves and fluid rapping that the Abstract Poetic has built his peerless career on. Although it has a few more message songs than his dance-heavy debut from 1999 (Amplified), many of these tracks are club grooves painted with the same production touches as ten years earlier; his work is still excellent 20 years after his career began, but he seems less interested in spinning four minutes of fluent rap for each track. (Granted, he's carrying this show alone, with no Phife Dawg to take every other verse.) Some of the songs are built with a live group (including guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel), although they usually sound programmed. One thing is for sure: Q-Tip is still a master of pacing and atmosphere, structuring the first half of the record so smoothly that listeners may not notice a transition until the sixth track, "We Fight/We Love," which contrasts the perspective of a man in the middle of war with a woman left alone. The closer, "Shaka," got the most attention leading up to release, since an early version sampled Barack Obama (perhaps coincidentally, The Renaissance was originally scheduled to be released on Election Day). Sounding like a latter-day Midnight Marauders and The Love Movement, and very similar to the unreleased Kamaal the Abstract, The Renaissance is a worthy comeback for the man who's arguably done more to make hip-hop enjoyable than any other figure. ~ John Bush, All Music Guide