Tonight at the annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony in Cleveland, A Tribe Called Quest were inducted by Dave Chappelle, with Q-Tip, Jarobi White, and Phife Dawg’s parents accepting the honor. (Ali Shaheed Muhammad was not present.) After Chappelle paid tribute to their legacy and influence, video played of André 3000, Mike D, and Questlove discussing the hip-hop legends’ imprint on music and popular culture. De La Soul, Busta Rhymes, the Roots, Queen Latifah, Common, and Spliff Star then performed a medley of Tribe classics. Watch it go down below.
In his speech, Q-Tip said, “What’s more rock and roll than the blues? But just like our predecessors, we had to find spaces on the outskirts of cities and towns, from a southern sun house off Robert Johnson Crossroads to a transformed room in a hood tenement on Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx. The need to express burns in us with an art-fueled determination. A spark. The spark that embers within many of us in this room, and the spark that burned within the four of us boys in 1985 in New York City.”
Queen Latifah opened the tribute performance with “Can I Kick It?,” soon joined by Black Thought and De La Soul’s Posdnous for “Check the Rhime” and Common for “Bonita Applebum.” Busta Rhymes, who appeared with Leaders of the New School on Tribe’s 1992 hit “Scenario,” played a fusion of the original and the remix.
This year’s other Rock Hall inductees are Mary J. Blige, Cher, Kool & the Gang, Dave Matthews Band, Foreigner, Peter Frampton, and Ozzy Osbourne. Follow all of Pitchfork’s coverage of the event.
