Old school hip-hop fans are rejoicing this week as A Tribe Called Quest celebrate its 25th anniversary with a reissue of People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm and a performance of "Can I Kick It?" on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallow with assistance from The Roots.
Q-Tip, Phife Dawg, Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Jarobi White came together for the first time in two years and the first time on a televised program in 15 years to perform one of the group's most beloved songs.
Fallon was visibly ecstatic to see the group perform and couldn't wipe the smile from his face to introduce the band. The performance opened with that iconic hallow bass slide as A Tribe Called Quest instructed the audience to get on their feet and then on how to perform the song's call-and-response chorus -- "Can y'all kick it? Yes we can."
The Roots provided the perfect backing with all the original horn blasts and Questlove, who has never been shy about his love and admiration for A Tribe Called Quest, stayed rock steady on the classic hip-hop drum beat that drives the song.
It all came together for one spectacular performance that had the audience participating and Fallon falling over himself at the end to praise the band. Watch below.
This week, Pitchfork designated the album as Best New Reissue, rating it a rare 10 out of 10 for the band's innovative embrace of jazz and social activism that has come to shape today's best rap artists.
"There's no stretch in saying that, without A Tribe Called Quest, the biggest rap artists of this year - Drake, Future, and Kendrick Lamar - would not exist as they do," Pitchfork writes in the review. "Drake would not be Drake without Kanye West's 808s and Heartbreak; Kanye would not be Kanye without his Tribe influences. Without Tribe, the Dungeon Family - birthplace of Outkast, Goodie Mob, and Future - arguably does not exist. And the improvisational looseness of Kendrick's opus is unthinkable without the innumerable branches of jazz and hip-hop sprouting from Tribe's experimentation, which differed significantly from the cooler jazz-sample leanings of Stetsasonic and Gang Starr."
