EP117: Cristela Alonzo on A Tribe Called Quest’s “We Got It From Here…Thank You 4 Your Service” (2016)

Episode notes

2016 was a hard year, to say the least. We lost Prince, David Bowie, Phife Dawg, Sharon Jones, and many others that year. And on top of that, we here in the US had to reckon with the results of the presidential election. On November 11th 2016, A Tribe Called Quest dropped their final album, We Got It From Here…Thank You 4 Your Service, with verses from Phife himself. It came at a time we needed Tribe the most. It went Gold and was widely regarded as one of the best albums of the year.

Comedian Cristela Alonzo sat down with us to talk about We Got It From Here and why it quite literally changed the course of her life. We talk about the use of samples and how Tribe was able to update their sound for a modern audience without compromising the mission statement and production style that made them famous all those years ago.

More on Cristela Alonzo

• Cristela’s new book Music to My Years is out now
• Laughing in Color: Cristela Alonzo on Finding Her Voice Through Comedy (WNYC)
• Twitter | Instagram

More on We Got It From Here…Thank You 4 Your Service

• Oliver’s review of the album for NPR
• A Tribe Called Quest’s Soundtrack to the Resistance (The Village Voice)
• Life Goes On With A Tribe Called Quest (The AV Club)

Show Tracklisting (All songs from We Got It From Here…Thank You 4 Your Service unless otherwise indicated):

• The Donald
• The Space Program
• We The People…
• Curtis Mayfield: We The People Who Are Darker Than Blue
• Dis Generation
• Kids…
• Elton John: Bennie and the Jets
• Solid Wall of Sound
• Nairobi Sisters: Promised Land
• Whateva Will Be
• Dis Generation
• Conrad Tokyo
• We The People
• Black Spasmodic
• Melatonin
• Lost Somebody
• Conrad Tokyo
• J Dilla: U-Love
• Gang Starr: Bad Name
• 2pac: Changes

Here is the Spotify playlist of as many songs as we can find there

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