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

Nobody expected another Tribe album. Eighteen years had passed since The Love Movement, the group had spent much of that time publicly at odds, and in March 2016 Phife Dawg died from complications of diabetes at 45. What almost nobody knew was that the four of them had quietly reunited and been recording together in Q-Tip's home studio. When We Got It from Here... arrived that November, it debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, the group's first chart-topper in more than 20 years, moving 135,000 units in its opening week.

The record sounds like a group with nothing left to prove and something urgent to say. "We the People...." landed days after the 2016 election with a hook that felt less like commentary than prophecy, and "The Space Program" opens the album on a warning about who gets left behind. Phife's verses run throughout, sharp and funny and heartbreaking in hindsight, and Q-Tip's production stitches live instrumentation into the group's sample-built DNA without losing the bounce. The guest list is absurd on paper and seamless in practice: André 3000, Kendrick Lamar, Anderson .Paak, Jack White, Elton John, Kanye West, Talib Kweli, plus longtime running mates Busta Rhymes and Consequence.

Phife chose the title. The others never fully understood what he meant by it and kept it anyway, which is about the most Tribe gesture imaginable. The album was certified gold the following year and turned up on nearly every 2016 year-end list worth reading. It stands as one of the very few late-career reunion records that genuinely belongs alongside the classics.

This 2LP edition spreads the full album across four sides of 150-gram vinyl. The last word from one of hip-hop's greatest groups, and a fitting one.