6 — Tuesday, November 15, 2016
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
ACROSS
1 Wobbly dessert
6 Pal
9 Vintner’s tub
12 Birdlike
13 Drachma replacer
14 B&Bs
16 Source of post-
toilet training
anxiety
18 Use too much of,
briefly
19 Many SAT takers
20 Dashboard
feature
21 Reach through
the air
22 Surfer’s
destination
25 Treat, as table
salt
28 Major blood
vessel
29 Male in the hive
30 Sharp-tasting
32 Trailer park
parkers
35 Actor Cariou of
“Blue Bloods”
36 Great Depression
recovery program
39 Question of
method
40 Letters on a law
office door
41 Purges (of)
42 “The Hot Zone”
virus
44 Quick-as-lightning
Bolt
47 Apt to
malfunction, as
wiring
48 Youngest son of
Queen Elizabeth II
52 Illumination units
53 Have __: know
someone
54 “The Night Of”
channel
57 Slender
woodwind
58 Desert plant
suggested by this
puzzle’s circles
61 Dingbat
62 Flat-package
furniture chain
63 River through
western
Germany
64 Florida island
65 Video game
initials
66 Separates for the
wash
DOWN
1 Quick punches
2 “Did you __?!”
3 The eyes have
them
4 Murphy’s __
5 Standard eggs
purchase
6 Play with Lincoln
Logs, say
7 Coffee hour
vessel
8 Peat source
9 Purple shade
10 Artist nicknamed
the “Pope of Pop”
11 Govt. bill
13 And others, in
bibliographies
15 Stuck-up sort
17 Goodyear product
21 Pres. who
developed the 36-
Across
22 Finish in front
23 Stuff to sell
24 Itty bit
25 Not employed
26 Rock groups?
27 Man of La
Mancha
30 Packing rope
31 Say further
33 Chevy’s plug-in
hybrid
34 Rock to music
37 Great Lake
bordering four
states
38 Knowledge
seekers
43 Flower source
45 Companion of
Bashful
46 Bldg. coolers
47 Get no credit for,
in school
48 Walk heavily
49 Big name in
puzzle cubes
50 British
noblewomen
51 Where to see the
Sun, the Sky and
the Stars: Abbr.
54 Will beneficiary
55 Like an arm in a
sling
56 Lyrical lines
58 Altoids
container
59 Island strings
60 Question of
identity
By Alex Eaton-Salners
©2016 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
11/15/16
11/15/16
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
RELEASE DATE– Tuesday, November 15, 2016
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
xwordeditor@aol.com
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Athletes retire; artists die. On
March 22, Malik “Phife Dawg”
Taylor – the funky diabetic –
finally
lost
his
career-spanning
fight with diabe-
tes at the age of
45. What started
as a strain on
his
relationship
with the Tribe
(most infamously,
Q-Tip),
doubled
as a beautifully
fitting
jolt
of
mortality to bring
everyone togeth-
er for a parting piece.
After 18 years of silence,
A Tribe Called Quest’s latest
album features all four of the
founding members, including
Jarobi White, who left the group
before the release of The Low
End Theory in ’91. Though Pfife
couldn’t make it to the album’s
release or the stunning SNL per-
formances, his voice haunts the
project and the minds of hip-hop
purists for generations to come.
The title alone lends itself to
some sort of cryptic sendoff: We
Got It from Here... Thank You 4
Your Service. Legend has it that
Phife himself chose the title,
without explanation. But would
he really thank himself for his
services? Released suspiciously
close to the presidential elec-
tion, perhaps the title doubles as
an ode to another Black Ameri-
can. Perhaps he foresaw a nation
built on slave labor replac-
ing its first African-American
president with a man who cam-
paigned on hate speech. Why
else does the album close with
“The Donald”?
Rap music – the music of
America’s
cracked
pavement
and sidewalks – provides dis-
tillations of our political cli-
mate unlike any other medium.
I wasn’t around in ’93. I can’t
speak on how Midnight Maraud-
ers shed light on the issues of its
time, yet it’s clear as day how A
Tribe Called Quest has chan-
neled the pulse of its People for
over 30 years. We Got It from
Here is not a case of old dogs per-
forming new tricks.
Though elements of songs
from over 25 years ago are still
present throughout the album,
Q-Tip’s forward-thinking cre-
ative direction has proven to be
timeless. The bassline funk of
“Sucka N****” lives on within
“Whateva Will Be,” but is retro-
fitted this time with glitchy soul
chops and syllables. Considering
how a song like “Excursions”
was such an outrageous devia-
tion from the N.W.A. and Public
Enemy of its time, history shows
that we shouldn’t be surprised at
how gracefully Tribe has aged.
They’re not some band of
washed up, out-of-touch con-
servative hip-hop heads. They
are
permanently
embedded
into the canon of American rap
music, and it’s awesome to see
their awareness of it 18 years
after the fact. On “Dis Genera-
tion” Q-Tip jibes “Talk to Joey,
Kendrick and Cole / gatekeepers
of flow / They are extensions of
instinctual
soul.”
The entire song is a
proverbial passing
of the Zulu torch.
The same inclu-
sive approach to
collaboration that
birthed the Native
Tongues has yield-
ed an album ros-
ter
with
friends
old and new alike:
Kanye West, André
3000, Jack White,
Consequence, Kendrick Lamar,
Talib Kweli, Anderson .Paak and
of course the ever-present Busta
Rhymes.
The range of guests can make
Thank You 4 Your Service almost
feel like a high-school-reunion-
turned-going-away-party. Some
friends come and go, some stick
around longer. Kendrick Lamar
stops by for only 20 seconds on
“Conrad Tokyo,” but squeezes
every bit of life from within him
to conjure a verse that could
make you believe that maybe,
just maybe, it’ll bring Phife back.
The most damning thing
about the record is that maybe
this isn’t a world that Phife
would even want to re-enter,
anyways; Lamar, 29, and Phife,
45, are generations apart but
participants in the same Black
American experience: “Trump
and SNL hilarity / Troublesome
times kid, no time for comedy
/ … / Bullshit you spewing / As
if this country isn’t already
ruined.”
Old friends bring with them
the warmth of tradition and
familiarity. Busta Rhymes’ fin-
gerprints are predictably all over
the album, illuminating tracks
like “Mobius” and “The Don-
ald” with the energy of reunited
homies. You can practically hear
how giddy he is to share a studio
with Phife, switching directions
mid-verse in his classic scatter-
brained delivery: “Ayo wait wait
wait, I gotta go again!” He never
does go again, opting instead to
drop hilarious pieces of street
wisdom: “Keep it moving / Keep
the convo short / Bring a case
of Henny.” Bussa Buss’ promi-
nence on We Got It from Here
is a reminder of the grassroots
spirit Tribe has carried since
Instinctive Travels; always have
fun with it, and it shows in the
music.
Album-opener
“The
Space
Program” is similarly vintage
Tribe, with Jarobi speaking on
the prison-industrial complex
in the absolute zaniest fashion
possible: “Rather see we in a
three-by-three structure with
many bars / Leave us where
so many are, so they can play
with the stars / They takin’ off
to Mars, got the space vessels
overflowing / What, you think
they want us there? All us n*****
not going.” Tip chimes in more
bluntly: “There ain’t no space
program for n******.”
Tribe’s transformation hasn’t
been limited only to their sonic
palette. Most interestingly, their
range of political concerns have
expanded as well. In a year
that has already seen Young
Thug don a (very nice) dress
on the cover of Jeffery, “We
The People” is one of the most
tastefully in-your-face pieces
of social commentary this year.
The heaviest synth in the entire
Tribe discography twists and
growls under a hook that’s jar-
ring out of sheer simplicity: “All
you Black folks, you must go /
All you Mexicans, you must go /
And all you poor folks, you must
go / Muslims and gays, boy we
hate your ways.” Even Phife hits
his native Patois accent from
beyond the grave. It’s the energy
of Run The Jewels but without
the corny bullshit.
If the uncredited features
help shroud the project in mys-
tery, the back-and-forth verses
and left-field beat switches make
the album excitingly unpre-
dictable for a genre based on
repetitive loops. One of the most
pleasant surprises is the Kanye
West feature on “The Killing
Season”; with only three words,
not only does his voice take the
song by storm, but the sound-
scape beneath him practically
falls through a trap door.
What starts as an archetypal
Afro-funk beat makes way for a
series of crooning melodies that
Tribe has never even experi-
mented with. Consequence picks
up where ‘Ye leaves off, and the
beat never returns to its original
state. In the arc of the proverbial
going away party, it feels like the
part of the night where friends
are drunk enough to squash
their beef; maybe the departure
of a friend reminds them both of
what’s really important: “Take
a bow / This might be your last
performance.”
While We Got It from Here is
largely a celebratory end to one
of the greatest stories ever told,
an undertone of the album is
this certain anxiety about death.
The going away party ends, your
friend leaves, and what’s next
for you? What’s next for your
friends? What did you learn from
the life of someone you liked
enough to be around? Thank
You 4 Your Service doesn’t pose
any solutions, nor does it try to
be something it isn’t. The simple
“thank you” is in the title. Thank
you, and Rest In Beats, Dawg.
EPIC
Someone’s been shopping at Ragstock.
After 18 years of silence, A Tribe
Called Quest is still vital and fresh
The late five-foot freak makes his presence felt on first album in 18 years
2016 hasn’t been the easiest
year on the sci-fi genre. There
have been some bright spots, to
be sure, with “Star
Trek Beyond” and
“Midnight
Spe-
cial” both garner-
ing
considerable
and
well-earned
praise.
Those
films have been
contrasted,
how-
ever, with “Inde-
pendence
Day:
Resurgence,”
which combined all the mistakes
of its predecessor with none of
the charm, and “The Divergent
Series: Allegiant” and “The 5th
Wave,” which both made compel-
ling cases for putting a kibosh on
the modern YA genre. That’s why
Dennis Villeneuve’s (“Prisoners”)
“Arrival” is such a breath of fresh
air. Because it’s not just a good sci-
fi movie; it’s the best kind of sci-fi
movie. In fact, it’s the best kind of
movie in general.
It nails the basics, first of all.
Amy Adams (“Man of Steel”)
gives the performance of her
career as Dr. Louise Banks, a
linguist called in to establish
communications between the
American government and a duo
of aliens who landed in Montana.
Jeremy Renner (“The Hurt Lock-
er”) and Forest Whittaker (“Pla-
toon”) do great work as well, but
there is never a scene that isn’t
absolutely dominated by Adams,
who perfectly conveys the awe,
confusion and devastation at the
seemingly otherworldly transi-
tion her character undergoes.
The cinematography by Brad-
ford Young (“Selma”) is flat-out
gorgeous. Whether it’s the alien
craft
dwarfing
the mountainside
it hovers above,
the mind-bending
shifts in gravity
inside the thing or
the
simple
inti-
macy of the scenes
between
Adams
and Renner, Young
makes every frame a work of
art. The French-Canadian Vil-
leneuve proves yet again why
he’s one of the most exciting
directors working in Hollywood
today, as his assuredness in both
his slow pacing and nonlinear
storytelling serve both to sepa-
rate the film from others of its
genre and to aid it in exploring
its themes.
It’s in those themes that
“Arrival” truly becomes some-
thing special. It’s not a film con-
tent to throw an action scene in
every half hour on the mark to
keep viewers in their seats. It isn’t
the kind of movie where the evil
aliens are outwitted at the last
possible second by a Goldblum-
led crew of plucky humans. It’s
a movie defined by what it says
rather than what it does.
For one, it’s a love letter to lan-
guage. Louise Banks waxes phil-
osophical about how language is
“the cornerstone of civilization”
and can change the way people
think about and comprehend
even simple subjects. Renner
narrates to explain how the
word “heptapod” was decided
upon for the aliens. The hepta-
pod language itself is incredibly
inventive and fits both visually
and thematically into the world
of the story. A love of language,
in big ways and small, somehow
permeates every scene of the
movie.
More than that, “Arrival” is a
film about humanity. This isn’t
new to the sci-fi genre, as even
the lesser films listed earlier
managed to boil down to “Peo-
ple working together is good,
so work together, people.” Vil-
leneuve and screenwriter Eric
Heisserer (“Lights Out”) dig a
layer deeper, though. “Arrival,”
at its core, is about how human-
ity deals with grief — both the
existential
grief
that
comes
with realizing the universe isn’t
as empty as we thought or the
far more relatable grief of loss.
Ultimately, it also uses its wildly
unique structuring to demon-
strate that moving beyond that
grief is often the only way to live
a life worth living.
It’s difficult to describe just
how special “Arrival” is with-
out delving too deeply into what
could be considered “spoiler ter-
ritory,” so it must be left at just
that. It’s the third in Denis Ville-
neuve’s hat trick of modern mas-
terpieces (with “Prisoners” and
“Sicario” rounding out the list),
a high-concept sci-fi film that’s
an absolute must-see for fans of
the genre.
PARAMOUNT PICTURES
Some scientist. She can’t even find the spaceship.
JEREMIAH VANDERHELM
Daily Arts Writer
Channeling Spielberg, Villeneuve creates a love letter to language
A
“Arrival”
Rave & Quality 16
Paramount Pictures
‘Arrival’ a sci-fi must-see
FILM REVIEW
A
We Got it from
Here... Thank You 4
Your Service
A Tribe Called
Quest
Epic
ALBUM REVIEW
SHAYAN SHAFII
Daily Arts Writer
Tribe has
channeled the
pulse of the people
for over 30 years.