Q-Tip may have gone ghost in the Twittersphere, but it appears that the silence is just a bit of calm before the storm. A recent interview with Billboard proved to be outrageously insightful, revealing new details about his anxiously anticipated Last Zulu LP -- with both Beck AND Kanye West potentially being featured on the record -- and much more importantly, what steps need to be enacted in order to give black communities hope that there is real, positive change happening on a governmental level that will ensure their safety and sanity as a people continually under attack, particularly in the wake of recent tragedies in South Carolina. Don't be fooled by the interview's rather playful beginnings, things get heavy in a hurry and Tip's response to Charleston is about as eloquent and hard-hitting as anything you've seen or heard thus far. Below you will find a few crucial excerpts from Q-Tip's interview, just make sure you hit the link to read the full script and watch out for Last Zulu later this year.
>>>Read Q-Tip's Full Billboard Interview
Tip on his approach to the Last Zulu:
"Yeah man, I'm putting the finishing touches on it now. I'm really excited about it. Marsha Ambrosius and I have been writing, we have Beck, and talking to Fiona Apple, and some other singers -- they're all going to be singing the choruses. You know how on the old records back in the day, if you're listening to "Young Americans," you know Bowie had Luther Vandross and he had Nona Hendryx singing background on a couple records. They won't be featured, but you'll be able to listen to the songs and pick out their tones, which is important for me. I'm also doing the album in different languages. I'm doing it in Spanish and French and Portuguese."
Debunking the rumor of Kanye's SWISH being scrapped:
"Yeah, Rick and I were gonna do the record, and Kanye went through different phases musically, so we've yet to reconnect on his project. We've met a few times and he's kept me up to speed here and there on what's happening. He's done the same with my record. We've been talking about some ideas for my record as well. We're still in step. It's not like [Kanye] scrapped any of it, that's a rumor."
Why removing the confederate flag just isn't enough:
"I said it a long time ago on Twitter -- one of the things I said when the Trayvon situation happened, I said there's no value for black life. I think that that's kind of equivalent to the "black lives matter." We have to have that conversation, we as African-Americans, as black folks, we've given so much to this country in so many different regards, that it's embarrassing to be viewed in the whole word as this country whose citizens are still tied to these silly notions that three-fifths of a human being. I think if you're going to call for the takedown of this flag, I think we need to take that out of the constitution. It's been amended, but it still exists within the constitution, where it says that blacks are three-fifths of a human being. I'm truly insulted by that, in the highest literature of the land, in 2015, that it still says that blacks are three-fifths."
