The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Wednesday, February 13, 2019 — 5A

When I think of A Tribe Called 
Quest, I think of my high school’s 
art room. I think of the overflowing 
cork board, pushpins doing their 
darndest to tack down exceptional 
student work and inspiration, with 
a cardstock square print of the Beats, 
Rhymes and Life cover hanging on for 
dear life at the top left corner. I think 
of playing “Oh My God” in the select, 
seniors-only space that was the back 
room (affectionately referred to as 
“the closet,” because it wasn’t much 
bigger) while we were painting the 
annual homecoming mural. I think 
of my classmate approaching me the 
next day, gushing about Midnight 
Marauders and asking for more 
music 
recommendations 
similar 
to it. I think about finally breaking 
down the façade of my too-cool-for-
school art teacher when he regaled 
the story of his first Tribe concert to 
me.
When Hanif Abdurraqib thinks 
of A Tribe Called Quest, he thinks of 
his father’s reverence for jazz, sour 
cherry candies he bought on a road 
trip and Tony, the bootleg “CD Man” 
in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio.
Abdurraqib thinks of a lot of 
things I have never thought of, 
but we are still united in the fact 
that when we think of A Tribe 
Called Quest, we think of a lot of 
thoughts. Both him and I are self-
described ATCQ fans, and while 
our backgrounds can’t be any more 
disparate — Black boy from urban 
Ohio who blossomed alongside the 
golden age of hip hop and white girl 
born and bred in varying suburbs 
who rediscovered that era as the 
internet made her more musically 
conscious — this strand of fandom 
has lassoed us together.
In “Go Ahead in the Rain,” 
Abdurraqib threads together all 
these thoughts using the keen needle 
that is A Tribe Called Quest.
The 
book’s 
function 
is 
multifaceted: 
a 
history, 
a 

commentary, a love letter, a memoir. 
It tracks the history of the Tribe 
from its inception to its final bow, 
supplemented with sketches of 
scenes from Abdurraqib’s own 
adolescence and grounded in the 
American landscape at any given 
moment. Take, for example, his 
situating of ACTQ’s sophomore 
album, The Low End Theory, in the 
context of the Rodney King riots: 
“Los Angeles wasn’t on fire yet when 
(Low End) was being made or when 
it was released. But it would be on fire 
by the time the songs were playing in 
heavy rotation across America … The 
constant replaying of the footage 
(of Rodney King’s beating) was 
laying a new groundwork for rage in 
communities miles away.” Low End 
is an album undercut by “righteous 
anger,” as Abdurraqib puts it, but in 
his exhaustive profile of the group, 
he never loses sight of the world 
they moved with, and the world that 
moved against them.
A Tribe Called Quest’s anger 
on The Low End Theory was more 
audibly weaponized by other groups 
defining the rap game in divergent 
ways, groups like Public Enemy 
or N.W.A. That same anger was 
channeled through Abdurraqib in 
a heart-wrenching anecdote where 
he punched his older brother, “not 
because I wanted to hurt him, but 
because I wanted him to imagine 
a world in which I was unafraid 
to 
hurt 
him.” 
This 
complex 
interconnectedness is indicative of 
how the book flows as a whole: For 
everything A Tribe Called Quest did, 
Abdurraqib has a story to tell.
And through the stories he tells 
us, they live on through stories of 
our own. In this regard the book 
is timeless. There is no Midnight 
Marauders without the legendary 
cover art, a veritable who’s who 
of rap in ’93. There is no Midnight 
Marauders without young music 
nerds like Abdurraqib, who would 
complement his listens to the record 
flipping the sleeve back and forth, 
trying to correctly identify everyone 
on the cover without peeking at the 

cheat sheet on the back. There is no 
Midnight Marauders if it doesn’t live 
on decades later, in an unlikely high 
school art room hundreds of miles 
away from Linden Boulevard in New 
York City.
This is not to say “Go Ahead 
in the Rain” falls into a formula. 
Abdurraqib does not spend the 
whole time laying out a concise 
compendium of the major players 
in late ’80s and early ’90s hip hop, 
nor does he spend the whole time 
talking about his childhood attempts 
to impress the 
cool kids on 
the bus rides 
to 
school 
with his ever-
expanding 
taste. 
He 
satisfyingly 
swirls all these 
parts into a 
simmering 
stew, 
meant 
for all to enjoy, 
from 
old 
to 
young, fan to 
critic. Its taste 
is irresistible.
No 
two 
people 
will 
have the same 
experience 
reading “Go Ahead in the Rain.” 
You might have never heard of A 
Tribe Called Quest before picking 
up the book, or you might be so 
well versed in hip hop history you 
felt Abdurraqib’s version of it was 
incomplete. No matter how you feel, 
Abdurraqib makes you think about 
your relation to the Tribe, however 
idiosyncratic it is. He uses ATCQ’s 
music as a springboard to uncover 
an unsure truth behind their impact, 
wonderfully juggling tons of golden 
nuggets of supplemental information 
while never losing sight of the task at 
hand. Abdurraqib asks a seemingly 
simple question — “Is there more 
to A Tribe Called Quest than their 
discography?” — only to stumble 
upon a wealth of answers.
Since I didn’t live alongside A 

Tribe Called Quest at their peak, 
my fandom is one primarily defined 
by wistful appreciation, delving 
critically into their catalog for the 
sake of my growth as a listener 
and a scholar. I was overjoyed that 
Abdurraqib introduced the mostly 
chronological framework of the book 
with a discussion of “Jazz (We’ve 
Got),” my absolute favorite Tribe 
song, and even mentioned a very 
specific line from the song, one that 
has stuck with him as much as it has 
stuck with me since my first listen 
years ago: “I 
don’t 
really 
mind if it’s over 
your head / 
Cause the job 
of resurrectors 
is to wake up 
the dead.” Yet 
I was slightly 
disappointed 
he didn’t have 
much to say 
about 
the 
actual music on 
their last and 
most 
recent 
album We Got 
It from Here... 
Thank You 4 
Your Service.
Much 
like 
Q-Tip’s bumbling road trip in the 
“I Left My Wallet In El Segundo” 
video and much like life, the book 
is a meandering odyssey, one with 
no clear end or beginning. It is 
loaded with references, stories and 
background information, but there is 
no semblance of a traditional music 
biography. The core communion 
between the artist, the listener and 
the world is the main narrative tool 
that binds all these moving parts 
together, but is perhaps only evident 
to those who actively synthesize 
their interest in the music with 
what they are reading on the page. 
How you feel if given an exit survey 
might directly depend on your level 
of familiarity with ACTQ.
However, it doesn’t matter if you 
feel “Go Ahead in the Rain” was 

encyclopedic or inadequate. What 
matters is that it makes you feel 
something, because the thing so 
damn captivating about the Tribe is 
their timeless capacity to touch us 
any listener. A common criticism of 
the group nowadays is that they are 
corny, that it’s rap for your parents. 
The irony is that this criticism has 
been thrown at them for their entire 
lifespan. I think that says a lot — A 
Tribe Called Quest might not be for 
you, but at least you tried to listen 
to them, you had a clear experience 
with them, be you mother, son, 
father or daughter.
Celebrity deaths don’t usually 
hit me hard, but the passing of 
Malik Izaak Taylor aka Phife Dawg 
challenged me in a way I was never 
familiar with. He was a core fixture 
of a group I immensely admired, 
but never associated with anything 
more than some damn good music 
— the same music that I got everyone 
bopping to in my high school art 
room. Back in my advanced art class 
senior year, we had free reign to 
take on any project. To make sense 
of Phife’s death, I decided my next 
endeavor would be a tribute, a dual 
portrait of Q-Tip and Phife united 
in brotherhood. But because of my 
misguided laziness and the reality 
that deadlines are a fickle mistress, 
I only ended up drawing Q-Tip solo, 
and my tribute felt hollow.
I have always found myself 
mesmerized by Q-Tip’s craft: I 
had never felt the betrayal that 
Abdurraqib felt when he learned 
Tip was the most responsible for 
Tribe’s inevitable break-up. On one 
of those late nights painstakingly 
sketching the countless strands of 
straw composing his hat, Thank 
You 4 Your Service dropped. I 
immediately bought it on iTunes 
(I know, something unheard of in 
today’s day and age of streaming). I 
needed to own this album: It wasn’t 
enough to just look it up on Spotify, 
a place where its continued existence 
is not fully guaranteed. The greatest 
impression I had after my first 
listen was that the album is a bridge 

between the past and future, life and 
death. To Hanif, who never “wanted 
another Tribe Called Quest album” 
before “Phife died,” “it was even 
greater than (he) could ever ask for.” 
To me, it was the old guard’s way of 
formally passing the torch to the rap 
I grew up with, those like “Joey, Earl, 
Kendrick and Cole,” as shouted out 
on “Dis Generation.”
If I had to describe “Go Ahead in 
the Rain” using only one Tribe song, 
it would be “Black Spasmodic,” a cut 
off the second half of Thank You 4 
Your Service. Tip’s verse on the song 
is very much trying to make sense 
of Phife’s death, using his words to 
summon Phife’s own spirit “through 
mixing chords and boards and even 
drum machines.” His verse ends:

“Live the Tribe principle of having 
impeccable taste

Enjoy that breath like that one was 
your last one left

If you don’t believe me, Tip, there’s 
truly life after death

So refer to the Biggie covers and 
shout out my Trini brothers

And please check in on my mother

Malik Izaak, call me shorty.”

It seems Malik’s death was 
the impetus for Abdurraqib to 
write “Go Ahead in the Rain,” his 
way of making sense of it. We are 
blessed with him giving the Tribe 
everything he could, acting a lovely 
curator and chronicler of all things 
A Tribe Called Quest. Abdurraqib 
reminds us that the soul of the group 
was always one to be shared, then 
and now, between Hanif and me, 
through speakers in art rooms and 
headphones on bus rides, to anyone 
willing to hear.

With ‘Go Ahead,’ Abdurraqib never loses sight of love

CASSANDRA MANSUETTI
Senior Arts Editor

Suspended on top of a metal 
ladder breaching into the ceiling 
of the Newman Studio at the 
Walgreen Drama Center, was 
Theatre and Drama professor, 
Tzveta Kassabova. “Can I just 
drop this tire first? Before the 
interview?” she called down 
to me. “Of course! Absolutely!” 
I 
exclaimed 
in 
response, 
excited to be witness to a bit 
of theatrical magic as a large 
tire fell from the darkness 
of the ceiling with a simple 
flick 
of 
a 
rope. 
Tzveta 
cheered in admiration at the 
contraption having worked, 
and went to hug her set 
designer Niki White. With 
less than a week left until the 
opening of the devised show 
“Murakami by the Sea,” the 
entire studio was buzzing 
with hands busy at work.
“And then I realized that 
the deep darkness inside 
me had vanished. Suddenly. 
As suddenly as it had come. 
I raised myself from the 
sand and, without bothering 
either to take off my shoes 
or roll up my cuffs, walked 
into the surf to let the waves 
lap at my ankles,” are the 
brilliant words of Haruki 
Murakami, 
a 
Japanese 
writer, whose short stories and 
novels have influenced people 
across the world. His writings 
are the foundation of the 
devised show “Murakami by 
the Sea.” Tzveta Kassabova, the 
director of the piece, speaks of 
the visceral feelings that can be 
found in specific moments such 
as the ones Murakami addresses 
in the above passage. “I find 
it beautiful that sometimes 
things happen in one moment. 
You 
don’t 
even 
necessarily 
know how it happened but 
you understand that singular 
moment, made everything very 
different.” In the rehearsal 
process, Kassabova has been 
working with the actors to 
create life-altering moments 
like these, on the stage. “A lot 

of it is setting circumstances 
so that something can happen,” 
she began, “It’s a blank slate 
starting from scratch. We all 
(the cast and crew) read the 
short stories and researched 
images 
that 
we 
then 
can 
create with. We started to play 
improvisational 
games, 
that 
set the structure for certain 
moments to occur. Nothing is 
forced in this, it just happens.”
A devised piece of theatre is 
a process of theatre creation in 
which the whole team: Actors, 
directors, designers, etc. are 

partaking in the development 
of 
the 
show. 
Sam 
Dubin, 
Sophomore BFA Acting major 
and an actor in “Murakami by 
the Sea,” explained what the 
rehearsal process was like for 
him: “We met a month before 
we started rehearsals and the 
entire cast and crew had dinner 
together and talked about our 
relationship to the text to begin 
with 
and 
our 
expectations 
with the text moving forward,” 
he explained. The rehearsal 
process of a devised piece is not 
the same rehearsal process of a 
scripted play. There are no lines 
given to actors to memorize 
at the beginning, no character 
objectives to configure. Actors 
create the story with the rest 
of the ensemble in the room, 

during the rehearsals.
While this can be creatively 
exciting, it can also be difficult. 
Dubin explains the difficulties 
he found during the process: 
“It’s no joke that this can be 
frustrating and most of the 
time things don’t make sense 
in our head,” says Dubin. “One 
thing our dramaturge (Teresa 
Kovacs) would say is that 
there’s a human need to want 
the questions to be answered. 
She told us that we should enjoy 
the questions we have and 
allow them to push us forward. 
Maybe we will find the 
answers, but in away 
our goal is to end 
this 
process 
with 
more 
questions. 
If 
you give an audience 
answers and you make 
it easier for them, 
it’s more likely that 
they’ll forget about it. 
Even if someone sees 
‘Murakami 
by 
the 
Sea’ and they don’t 
understand 
what’s 
going on, it’s more 
valuable 
to 
let 
an 
audience go and be able 
to confidently say that 
they’re questioning.”
Audience members 
are 
encouraged 
to 
enter into this show 
not expecting to find 
answers, but rather 
new ideas and queries about life 
to ruminate upon. “It becomes 
a part of you,” Dubin says of 
devising theatre. “You care 
about it, and you put so much 
of yourself into it, sometimes it 
can hurt you, in a way. Seeing it 
leave so quickly like that. It can 
hurt you.” After this February 
weekend, the actors will have 
left the stage. The set will be 
taken down, falling tire and all. 
The stage managers notes will 
be tucked away. But one thing 
will always remain: what was 
felt along the way. Moments 
found on the stage that provoke 
new emotions, new connections, 
new questions, provide the 
audience and creative team 
alike, an opportunity to leave 
the experience changed.

‘Murakami’ to be magical

COMMUNITY CULTURE PREVIEW

‘Murakami by the 
Sea’

Th. Feb. 14 @ 7 p.m.

Fri. Feb. 15 @ 7 p.m.

Fri. Feb. 15 @ 11 p.m.

Sat. Feb. 16 @ 7 p.m.

Sun. Feb. 17 @ 2 p.m.

Walgreen Drama Center

Free

BOOK REVIEW

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

‘Go Ahead 
in the Rain: 
Notes to a 
Tribe Called 
Quest’

Hanif Abdurraqib

University of Texas Press

Feb. 2019

Throughout the performing 
arts, diversity initiatives are 
beginning to take on historical 
problems 
in 
representation 
— 
particularly 
regarding 
directors, 
choreographers, 
conductors 
and 
others 
important to and yet removed 
from 
the 
performance 
process. This past weekend, 
the 
Department 
of 
Dance 
demonstrated their dedication 
to diversity with “Complex 
Rhythms,” 
a 
multi-work 
performance featuring three 
works by women of color.
The evening spanned four 
works: “7 x 12 And A Little Bit 
of Cha-Cha,” “Studio A, will 
you die with me?,” “Prelude, 
Fugue, and Riffs” and “Shelter.” 
Two of the works, “7 x 12 And 
A Little Bit of Cha-Cha” and 
“Prelude, Fugue, and Riffs” 
were choreographed by SMTD 
professors; the other two were 
by guest artists.
The evening opened with 
Professor Robin Wilson’s “7 
x 12 And A Little Bit of Cha-
Cha,” featuring the music of 
Marwan Amen-Ra, Alina Moor 
and SMTD Lecturer of Jazz & 
Contemporary 
Improvisation, 
Marion 
Hayden. 
Though 
it began with singing and 
limited movement, the work 
quickly morphed into a vibrant, 
colorful display. The dancers 
wore simple costumes of bright 
and solid colors. The cast of 12 
traversed the stage from left 
to right, sometimes diverging 
into smaller groups and solo 
moments.
At one point, the ensemble 
began walking repeatedly across 
the stage. As they continued 
walking, their motions went 
from 
simple 
to 
expressive, 
elaborate to profound. Motions 
that once represented walking 
began to represent dance. This 
was my favorite moment of the 
work, the moment at which 
human aspects of the elaborate, 
eye-catching 
choreography 
became apparent to me.

The second work, “Studio 
A, will you die with me?,” was 
a solemn, thought-provoking 
meditation on race. As the 
choreographer described in the 
program, “‘Studio A, will you 
die with me?’ is a fire ritual that 
works to disrupt the anti-black, 
heteronormative and capitalist 
structures that live within the 
fabric of Western dance studios 
and dance curriculums.”
The work began with a long 
blue sheet being drawn across 
the front of the stage and giant 
metal racks with candles on 
them being placed in the back. 
This blue sheet was quickly 
covered in miniscule sparkling 
objects that I can only assume 
were 
stones. 
The 
dancers, 
wearing 
neutral 
grey/green 
clothing, moved slowly across 
the stage. After a little while, 
they put on sparkling masks 
that all but completely obscured 
the facial region.
This, combined with the 
dim lighting, made individual 
identities all but unidentifiable. 
And while one member of 
the ensemble performed an 
impressive 
and 
elaborate 
dance, the others moved slowly 
and deliberately, their lack of 
motion perhaps representing 
more than their motion.
The 
finish 
was 
truly 
unforgettable. 
The 
music 
ended, the cast pulled off 
their masks and the audience 
sat in rapt attention. As the 
ensemble cleaned up the cloth 
and wheeled off the candles, 
the audience sat in silence, 
processing 
the 
poignant, 
complex work that had just 
occurred.
The 
third 
work 
was 
“Prelude, Fugue, and Riffs” 
by Professor Bill DeYoung. It 
featured a recording of Leonard 
Bernstein’s “Prelude, Fugue, 
and Riffs” by the University 
Symphony Band conducted by 
Professor Michael Haithcock.
The set was magnificent, 
containing individual points 
of light and grey rectilinear 
shapes mimicking an urban 
skyline on a starry night. The 
dancing, much like the music, 

reflected big band jazz taken 
to a hectic, almost frenetic 
extreme. Piercing jazz lines and 
frantic blues riffs were matched 
with busy ensemble motions 
and energetic solo moments. 
The dancers’ stamina was on 
display, as they managed to 
maintain for ten minutes what 
few could for one minute.
After a short intermission, 

percussionist 
Marwan 

Amen-Ra 
returned 
to 
the 
stage accompanied this time 
by 
Professor 
(and 
in 
this 
instance 
narrator) 
Robin 
Wilson for Jawole Willa Jo 
Zillar’s 
“Shelter.” 
Wilson 
and 
Department 
of 
Dance 
Chair, Anita Gonzalez, were 
both part of the original 1988 
performance, a performance 
attended 
to 
address 
“the 
suffering 
and 
isolation 
of 
homelessness” 
according 
to 
dramaturge Efe Osagie, who is 
a Michigan in Color editor for 
The Daily. The work had been 
modified following Hurricane 
Katrina to address those made 
homeless as a result of this 
storm; this was the version of 
the work being presented.
The performance was simple, 
yet profound. As Wilson read 
simple poetry and prose, the 
percussionist and the dancers 
evoked the struggle of these 
people. It was mournful at 
times, violent at others. It built 
to great heights, with dancers 
convulsing on the ground as 
the 
percussion 
aggressively 
beat time. And it traversed 
considerable 
lengths, 
the 
deliberacy 
of 
motion 
never 
ebbing though the intensity 
waned.
Though it ostensibly lasted 
over twenty minutes, it was 
engaging to the point where I 
lost track of time. It was a fitting 
end to the night and a stunning 
testament to the works of those 
outside the traditional canon 
of Western dance, particularly 
women of color. It was both 
a reminder for the need to 
increase the diversity of the 
performing arts and an example 
of the amazing work being done 
by those within the canon.

‘Complex Rhythms’ stuns

COMMUNITY CULTURE REVIEW

ALIX CURNOW
Daily Arts Wrtier

SAMMY SUSSMAN
Daily Arts Wrtier

