The Love Movement

the take

As crazy as it sounds, I'm having a bit of a struggle to find the words to describe an album that was at times frustrating but still ended up being good at the same time. A Tribe Called Quest's "The Love Movement" is a stark contrast from the darker atmosphere presented on the group's previous album "Beats, Rhymes and Life". With this one, the production provided by The Ummah sounds much more positive to fit the vibe of the album, which is, well, promoting love (duh). Excluding the six extra bonus tracks at the end, I say that to say it's inconsistent to me throughout. Beats like "Pad & Pen", "Like It Like That", and the underappreciated classic "Find a Way" are the clear highlights here, with many others being just as great or simply solid in general. On the flipside, songs like "Rock Rock Y'all" is just... *sighs* I'm glad this wasn't the ending to a group who made timeless classics. As for Q-Tip and Phife, you can tell that they couldn't be even more far apart than before. Q-Tip still put in the effort on every verse on here; meanwhile Phife Dawg sounded disinterested most of the time to where the odds of him having subpar verses increased (ex. "Da Booty"). On the songs where Phife was actually engaged in rapping ("Find a Way"), the songs would most likely be good. I'm actually glad the group hashed things out and recorded one more album before Phife Dawg passed, because for the longest, this was a somewhat underwhelming way to go out. At least, that's what my opinion was for the last ten or so years.