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The Love Movement

by A Tribe Called Quest

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Tribe's last album--they announced their breakup just prior to its release--has all of the problems of Midnight Marauders and Beats, Rhymes, and Life: they're just not People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm or The Low End Theory, Tribe's first two releases. That said, so what? Late-era Tribe is still a force to be reckoned with, even if it's not as much fun or doesn't have all the possibilities of Phife Dog, Q-Tip, and Ali Shaheed Muhammad's early work. The Love Movement's backing tracks recall previous releases but tend to be subtler--and therefore less than memorable--and a few of the tracks here are almost indistinguishable from one another. Q-Tip and Phife Dog bust out with few catch phrases (the exception is "Give Me," on which they rhyme "Boyz II Men, ABC, BBD--naw, we ain't none of them"); overall, they sound more mature than ever before. Are they really? At times, yes, and it seems that maturity is one of hip-hop's few unforgivable sins. --Randy Silver