20 Greatest Alternative Albums Of 2016

9. A Tribe Called Quest – We Got It From Here...Thank You 4 Your Service

Eighteen years is a long time, especially when you consider that Bill Clinton was still in office the last time A Tribe Called Quest released an album. Luckily for fans, 2016 changed all that.

From the moment Q-Tip launches into a savage freestyle on the lounge-friendly opener 'Space Program', you know you're in for a treat. You also quickly realize that this is the same boundary breaking act that you knew and loved twenty years ago.

The three-piece rarely miss a beat, tearing apart the current social climate on the rebellious 'We The People...' and delivering a laid back vocal trade-off on the blurry 'Wall Of Sound', kicking off the album with a bang. But at a running-time in the region of an hour long, there's certainly no shortage of superb deep cuts too. Make sure to hang around for the spaced-out jam 'Melatonin', the left-field bumbler 'Movin Backwards' and the abstract synth tripper 'Conrad Tokyo'

Some of the lyrics are a little too on the nose at times, but these instances are few and far between on what is otherwise a fantastic comeback from the '90s hip-hop pioneers.

Contributor
Contributor

Music Journalism graduate and freelance writer from Northern Ireland, who enjoys scouring the music archives for the best sounds from the past and present. Writer for the awesome publications WhatCulture, Metal Injection, Scribol, The Gamer, and Prefix.