''The Love Movement'' is the fifth

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

by American hip hop group

A Tribe Called Quest A Tribe Called Quest was an American hip hop group formed in Queens, New York City, in 1985,Q-Tip

, and their last album released during group member

Phife Dawg Malik Izaak Taylor (November 20, 1970March 22, 2016), known professionally as Phife Dawg (or simply Phife), was an American rapper and a member of the group A Tribe Called Quest with Q-Tip and Ali Shaheed Muhammad (and for a short time Jarobi W ...

's lifetime. Released on September 29, 1998, by

Jive Records Jive Records was an American independent record label founded by Clive Calder in 1981 as a subsidiary to the Zomba Group. In the US, the label had offices in New York City and Chicago. Jive was best known for its successes with hip hop, R&B, an ...

, it is a

concept album A concept album is an album whose tracks hold a larger purpose or meaning collectively than they do individually. This is typically achieved through a single central narrative or theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, or lyrical. Som ...

, exploring the lyrical theme of

love Love encompasses a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states, from the most sublime virtue or good habit, the deepest Interpersonal relationship, interpersonal affection, to the simplest pleasure. An example of this range of ...

. Musically, it is a continuation of the group's previous album, ''

Beats, Rhymes and Life ''Beats, Rhymes and Life'' is the fourth studio album by American hip hop group A Tribe Called Quest. Released on July 30, 1996, by Jive Records, it followed three years after the highly regarded and successful '' Midnight Marauders''. Produce ...

'', featuring minimalist R&B and

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

-oriented production by

The Ummah The Ummah was a music production collective, composed of members Q-Tip and Ali Shaheed Muhammad of A Tribe Called Quest, and the late Jay Dee (also known as J Dilla) of the Detroit-based group Slum Village. Occasional members included Raphael ...

. The lead single, " Find a Way", charted on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 and was followed by a second single, " Like It Like That". The album debuted at number three on the ''Billboard'' 200 and was certified

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...

by the

Recording Industry Association of America The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...

(RIAA) on November 1, 1998. The group announced its disbandment a month before the album's release.

Background

The roots of ''The Love Movement'' trace back to 1997, when Q-Tip produced a beat intended for

The Notorious B.I.G. Christopher George Latore Wallace (May 21, 1972 – March 9, 1997), better known by his stage names the Notorious B.I.G., Biggie Smalls, or simply Biggie, was an American rapper. Rooted in East Coast hip hop and particularly gangsta ...

's album ''

Life After Death The afterlife (also referred to as life after death) is a purported existence in which the essential part of an individual's identity or their stream of consciousness continues to live after the death of their physical body. The surviving ess ...

''.The Love Movement--A Tribe Called Quest (1998)
''

Vibe ''Vibe'' is an American music and entertainment magazine founded by producers David Salzman and Quincy Jones. The publication predominantly features R&B and hip hop music artists, actors and other entertainers. After shutting down productio ...

''. Accessed on February 26, 2018. The Notorious B.I.G. enjoyed the beat when it was played for him, however, ''Life After Death'' had already been completed and the beat was not used before his death later that year. Eventually, the beat was used for the song "The Love" on ''The Love Movement''. The album was originally slated for release in May 1998. However, on February 7, 1998, a fire at Q-Tip's home recording studio destroyed his entire record collection and a computer containing many unreleased songs by the group, including collaborations with producer

Jay Dee A jay is a member of a number of species of medium-sized, usually colorful and noisy, passerine birds in the Crow family, Corvidae. The evolutionary relationships between the jays and the magpies are rather complex. For example, the Eurasian ...

, delaying the album until September of that year.Cowie, Del F. (February 2008).
A Tribe Called Quest - Verses from the Abstract
. ''

Exclaim! ''Exclaim!'' is a Canadian music and entertainment publisher based in Toronto, which features in-depth coverage of new music across all genres with a special focus on Canadian and emerging artists. The monthly Exclaim! print magazine publishes 7 ...

''. Accessed on February 26, 2018.Q-Tip

Red Bull Music Academy The Red Bull Music Academy (RBMA) is a world-traveling series of music workshops and festivals that was founded in 1998 by Red Bull GmbH. The main five-week event is held in a different city each year. The public portion of its program is a festiv ...

. Accessed on February 26, 2018. A month before the album's release, the group announced that it was disbanding.

Music and lyrics

''The Love Movement'' is a continuation of the stripped-down R&B and jazz-infused sound that

created on ''

''. The album contains an instrumental track, "4 Moms", which features a guitar solo by jazz guitarist Chalmers "Spanky" Alford. Lyrically, love is the album's predominant theme, while Q-Tip and

were noted for their "mature", "subtle" and "laid-back" rhymes. The featured rappers were given praise for making the album sound "livelier", as it was criticized for being "a little monotonous" overall. Thomas Golianopoulos of ''

Spin Spin or spinning most often refers to: * Spinning (textiles), the creation of yarn or thread by twisting fibers together, traditionally by hand spinning * Spin, the rotation of an object around a central axis * Spin (propaganda), an intentionally b ...

'' hailed the single "Find a Way" as the group's "final glorious moment" before breaking up.

Reception

''The Love Movement'' debuted at number three on the ''Billboard'' 200 and was certified

by the

(RIAA), on November 1, 1998, with shipments of 500,000 copies in the United States. The album received mostly positive reviews from music critics. Josef Woodard of ''

Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cul ...

'' described it as "a slamming, seductively textured, and tough display of virtuosic rhyming and tale spinning."

Dele Fadele Ayodele Fadele (8 August 1962 – March 2018) was an English musician and music journalist who was active from the mid-1980s. He wrote for the '' NME'' in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and was one of the first music critics to introduce then em ...

of ''

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...

'' praised it for demonstrating "the continued survival of hip-hop as an artform", calling the album's songs "drug-free psychedelic experiences in which subsonic bass and weird-sounding beats play a large part." ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...

''s

Rob Sheffield Robert James Sheffield (born February 2, 1966) is an American music journalist and author. He is a long time contributing editor at ''Rolling Stone'', writing about music, TV, and pop culture. Previously, he was a contributing editor at ''Blen ...

believed that the "mature, accomplished niceness" of the album "proves that the Tribe still have the skills — they're just short on thrills." In a negative review, Tim Haslett of ''Spin'' wrote that the spontaneity that made ''

The Low End Theory ''The Low End Theory'' is the second studio album by American hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest, released on September 24, 1991, by Jive Records. Recording sessions for the album were held mostly at Battery Studios in New York City, from 1990 to ...

'' "so much fun" had been "replaced by a shiny patina and a flabby

George Benson George Washington Benson (born March 22, 1943) is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He began his professional career at the age of 19 as a jazz guitarist. A former child prodigy, Benson first came to prominence in the 1960s, pla ...

-esque seriousness, so that the record feels like it was conceived and executed around a major-label conference table." In a review for

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

, critic

Stephen Thomas Erlewine Stephen Thomas Erlewine (; born June 18, 1973) is an American music critic and senior editor for the online music database AllMusic. He is the author of many artist biographies and record reviews for AllMusic, as well as a freelance writer, occ ...

noted that "there are plenty of pleasures to be had from careful listening" of the album, and despite its love concept, he felt that "the overall effect is quite similar" to ''Beats, Rhymes and Life''.

Nathan Rabin Nathan Rabin (; born April 24, 1976) is an American film and music critic. Rabin was the first head writer for ''The A.V. Club'', a position he held until he left the ''Onion'' organization in 2013.

of ''

The A.V. Club ''The A.V. Club'' is an American online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was cre ...

'' stated, "While not as immediately accessible as Tribe's first three albums, it's still consistently solid enough to stand up to repeat listens." ''The Love Movement'' was nominated for a

Grammy Award for Best Rap Album The Grammy Award for Best Rap Album is an award presented to recording artists for quality albums with rapping at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards. Honors in several categories ...

, presented at the 41st Grammy Awards in 1999.

Track listing

*All songs produced by

, except track 11 produced by The Ummah and Bay-Lloyd. Notes *Tracks 1–4, 7, 8, 11, and 13 credited as "initiated by JD of The Ummah".

Samples

Start It Up *"

Sweet Georgia Brown "Sweet Georgia Brown" is a jazz standard composed in 1925 by Ben Bernie and Maceo Pinkard, with lyrics by Kenneth Casey. History Reportedly, Ben Bernie came up with the concept for the song's lyrics – although he is not the credited lyricist ...

" by

The Singers Unlimited The Singers Unlimited was a four-part jazz vocal group formed by Gene Puerling in 1971. The group included Len Dresslar (better known as the Jolly Green Giant in General Mills commercials), Bonnie Herman, and Don Shelton. History Gene Puerling ...

Find a Way *"Technova" by

Towa Tei is a Japanese artist, record producer, and DJ. Born in Yokohama, Japan, Towa debuted as a member of Deee-Lite, from the US label Elektra Records in 1990 and shot to fame via their international hit single, "Groove Is In the Heart". He made his s ...

*"Flash It to the Beat" by

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five were an American hip hop group formed in the South Bronx of New York City in 1978. The group's members were Grandmaster Flash, Melle Mel, Kidd Creole (not to be confused with Kid Creole), Keef Cowboy, Sc ...

Steppin' It Up *"Leo: Rosebud" by

Cannonball Adderley Julian Edwin "Cannonball" Adderley (September 15, 1928August 8, 1975) was an American jazz alto saxophonist of the hard bop era of the 1950s and 1960s. Adderley is perhaps best remembered for the 1966 soul jazz single "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy", whi ...

Give Me *"Give Me" by

I-Level I-Level were a British post-disco, contemporary R&B, R&B band, known for their underground UK club tracks "Minefield" and "Give Me" (also released as "Give Me What You Can't Get Back"). Under license to the US label Epic Records, the band had som ...

Motownphilly "Motownphilly" is a song by American vocal harmony group Boyz II Men, released as their first single from their debut album, ''Cooleyhighharmony''. The single was a success, peaking at number three on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100. Michael Bivins, w ...

" by

Boyz II Men Boyz II Men (pronounced ''boys to men''), also known as B2M, is an American vocal harmony group from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, best known for emotional ballads and a cappella harmonies. They are currently a trio composed of baritone Nathan M ...

Pad & Pen *"

Yearning for Your Love "Yearning for Your Love" is a 1980 ballad recorded and released by The Gap Band on Mercury Records. The single was the third release off the band's fifth album, ''The Gap Band III'' (1980). Four different singles, each with a different B-side, wer ...

" by

The Gap Band The Gap Band was an American R&B and funk band that rose to fame during the 1970s and 1980s. The band consisted of three brothers: Charlie, Ronnie, and Robert Wilson, along with other members; it was named after streets (Greenwood, Archer, an ...

*"Graduate Medley" by

Gap Mangione Gaspare Charles "Gap" Mangione (born July 31, 1938) is a jazz pianist from Rochester, New York. He is the brother of Chuck Mangione. Career In 1958, Mangione and his brother started performing together as the Mangione Brothers Sextet/Quintet. Fro ...

Busta's Lament *"Goin' Through Changes" by Feather Hot 4 U *"New Horizons" by

The Sylvers The Sylvers were an American R&B family vocal group from Watts, Los Angeles, California. The Sylvers were a popular act during the 1970s, recording the hit singles "Fool's Paradise", "Boogie Fever", and "Hot Line (song), Hot Line". Prior to bec ...

Against the World *" Jingling Baby" by

LL Cool J James Todd Smith (born January 14, 1968), known professionally as LL Cool J (short for Ladies Love Cool James), is an American rapper, songwriter, record producer, and actor. He is one of the earliest rappers to achieve commercial success, along ...

The Love *"

La Di Da Di "La Di Da Di" is a song performed by Doug E. Fresh, who provides the beatboxed instrumental, and MC Ricky D (later known as Slick Rick), who performs the vocals. It was originally released in 1985 as the B-side to " The Show". The song has since ...

" by

Doug E. Fresh Doug E. Fresh (born September 17, 1966) is a Barbados-born American rapper, record producer, and beatboxer, also known as the "Human Beat Box". The pioneer of 20th-century American beatboxing, Fresh is able to accurately imitate drum machines an ...

and

Slick Rick Richard Martin Lloyd Walters (born January 14, 1965), better known as Slick Rick, is an English-American rapper and record producer. He rose to prominence with Doug E. Fresh & the Get Fresh Crew in the mid-1980s. Their songs " The Show" and " ...

*"Little Sunflower" by

Freddie Hubbard Frederick Dewayne Hubbard (April 7, 1938 – December 29, 2008) was an American jazz trumpeter. He played bebop, hard bop, and post-bop styles from the early 1960s onwards. His unmistakable and influential tone contributed to new perspectives fo ...

Rock Rock Y'all *"What Can You Bring Me" by

Charles Wright & the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band Charles Wright & the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band is an American soul and funk band. Formed in the early 1960s, they had the most visibility from 1967 to 1973 when the band had 9 singles reach Billboard's pop and/or rhythm and blues charts, s ...

Personnel

Credits are adapted from

.The Love Movement – Credits
AllMusic. Accessed on February 26, 2018. * A Tribe Called Quest – primary artist * Busta Rhymes – guest artist * D-Life – guest artist * Jane Doe – guest artist *

Mos Def Yasiin Bey (; born Dante Terrell Smith, December 11, 1973), previously and more commonly known by his stage name Mos Def (), is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, and actor. His hip hop career began in 1994, alongside his siblings in the s ...

– guest artist * Noreaga – guest artist * Punchline – guest artist * Redman – guest artist * Spanky – guest artist, guitar * Wordsworth – guest artist * Q-Tip – composer * James Yancey (

) – composer * Ali Shaheed Muhammad – composer * Phife Dawg – composer * The Ummah – engineer, mixing, production * David Kennedy – engineer, mixing *

Tom Coyne Tom Coyne may refer to: * Tom Coyne (writer), American writer and professor * Tom Coyne (broadcaster) (1930–2015), British television presenter * Tom Coyne (music engineer) (1954–2017), American mastering engineer * Thomas Coyne (cricketer) ( ...

– mastering * Nick Gamma – art direction, design * Ron Croudy – design * Pascal Lewis – make-up * Robert Maxwell – photography

Charts and certifications

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Love Movement, The 1998 albums A Tribe Called Quest albums Albums produced by J Dilla Albums produced by Q-Tip (musician) Jive Records albums