In an interview with Newsweek‘s Seth Walls, rapper Q-Tip [click to read] shares his opinions on the industry and “record company people.“
The former frontman of A Tribe Called Quest [click to read], Q-Tip released his second studio album, The Renaissance [click to read], on November 4, 2008.
It took the Queens native close to a decade to release a second
studio album due to a various number of label issues. Due to these
label issues, Q-Tip‘s expected second studio album entitled Kamaal The Abstract was shelved.
“My thing is not like McDonald’s, where you go in and get fast
results,” Q-Tip explained to Newsweek. “My thing is like a gumbo or a
turkey dinner—you got to let it cook and marinate…I’m not a radio dude;
I’m about the long-term. It was like that with Tribe, and it’s like
that now.”
Even without an outrageous number of marketing campaigns, Q-Tip‘s The Renaissance was still able to reach the Number 11 spot on the Billboard Top 200 chart.
“Their model for getting numbers is broken,” Q-Tip explained. “They
realize it, but they don’t have any solutions. They all seem shook.
A&R departments need people who really know music. That way, they
can make records that last a long time, because eventually it’s going
to be about the whole catalog selling again. Especially in these hard
times, people want to make sure that their dollar is going to something
that’s worth something.”
Now signed to Motown/Universal Records, Q-Tip recently regained the rights to the master tapes of Kamaal The Abstract and plans on putting out the album himself.
