- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
His music now seems as fresh and necessary an alternative to rap's mainstream as it did when Tribe first arrived. Welcome back, old friend.
-
The Renaissance is arguably, the best hip-hop album of the year.
-
His long-awaited return on The Renaissance is no disappointment, offering more of the same understated, aqueous grooves and fluid rapping that the Abstract Poetic has built his peerless career on.
-
Though he gripes that fans are always bringing up Tribe, The Renaissance is a showcase for Q-Tip's cool and empathetic consciousness.
-
Whilst not quite a true Renaissance for hip hop, it certainly is a rebirth for Q-Tip--and fans of A Tribe Called Quest will dine out on this album for the next nine years too.
-
It's hard to complain too much about such a brighter-day kind of record, and it feels like the perfect album at the perfect time-- released on Election Day, appropriately enough, as the ideal soundtrack for Barack Obama winning the presidency.
-
The Renaissance is the logical extension of this exploratory work, coupled with Q-Tip’s need to, once and for all, step out from behind Tribe’s long, dominant shadow, and in many respects (if not all), it succeeds wildly in both dimensions.
-
Up-tempo and uplifting, this largely self-produced record blurs distinctions between accessibility and avant-gardism.
-
Cloaking its eclecticism with a homogenising sheen, the album's frequent changes of mood and direction dazzle.
-
The disc is an affirmation that life, and hip-hop, can indeed get better.
-
At the end of an extraordinary year in America, hip hop is witnessing the start of its lost icon's second term.
-
So the cookie-cutter joints are tossed out the window for The Renaissance as Q-Tip attempts to show that he can creatively flow over whatever unusual progression or production twist comes along with each successive track.
-
After myriad delays and label woes, it's clear the interminable wait for new material was worth it.
-
MojoHis reliably nerdular delivery and thoughtful lyrics still make it sound box-fresh compared to the generic macho fare that still dominates mainstream hip hop. [Dec 2008, p.100]
-
The Renaissance Q-Tip reaffirms his stature as one of the hip-hop greats by waxing unassuming, cool-headed and wise.
-
Q MagazineIn between there's much else to savour, from smooth slow jams to Won't Trade's terrific blast of rap meets '60s soul. [Jan 2009, p.123]
-
The Renaissance functions as a representation that he’s never needed to say much of anything to be immensely enjoyable.
-
It's an appropriately elegiac, bittersweet conclusion to a solid though less-than-transcendent comeback album from a hip-hop icon who has survived to make good music, even if he hasn't exactly thrived.
-
Some of this works wickedly--'Believe,' the D’Angelo track, is a keeper, as is 'Gettin’ Up,' a charismatic come-on--but there are just as many small missteps.
-
In a sentence, Q-Tip’s long-awaited release looks to get people to thinking, loving, and dancing, as usual.
-
The Renaissance hints at newness, but its cushy boom-bap grooves, airy soulfulness and rhymes about struggle and redemption recall rap’s Edenic “golden age.”
-
Q-Tip demonstrates his unique talent in this sleek, soulful, silky-smooth hip-hop album.
-
Q-Tip's flow on his new disc remains mellow, freewheeling, and vaguely inspirational. But it doesn't feel relevant.
-
UncutThe Renaissance offers a compromise between the rootsy East Coast rap he helped to define and the LP you imagine the label wanted. [Jan 2008, p.111]
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 59 out of 64
-
Mixed: 1 out of 64
-
Negative: 4 out of 64
-
ClaireFMar 31, 2009One of the best albums I have bought in years...immense!
-
TomaDJul 9, 2009One of the best Hip-Hop albums I've heard in ages! Easily one of the best of the 2000's decade. Keep it up Q-Man!
-
steveCJan 16, 2009