The artist who made hip hop history with A Tribe Called Quest might have done so with his solo record had it been released in 2002 on Arista – apparently Clive Davis and Tip “couldn't agree on a single,” Q told us.

The idea for the record was to expand the vocabulary of hip hop into more interesting live territory – to do for hip hop what Miles Davis did with his seminal fusion record, Bitches Brew.
Releasing an album mostly recorded ten years ago provokes some obvious questions: will it still be relevant? Well, being that radio is not currently saturated with lyrical, jazz-inflected rap, the answer is a sad yes. Yes, the album is relevant—sad, because it might have been a gamechanger in 2002.

The most interesting thing happening in music right now is the “I AM T-PAIN” iPhone app. Kamaal The Abstract offers a view of a parallel universe where an accomplished MC like Q-Tip is given the resources and support to make hip hop that's not just music, but art. It showcases what a world it could be.

An artist is allowed the space to make mistakes, and the grace to fail. Not every track on the record is an obvious success; but the album as a whole exists as a document of just how far out a hip hop practitioner might want to take their music.

“The music coming out now—it's like octave music,” Q-Tip told us. “There's no harmony to tie any kind of melodic idea together. The melodies are not really venturing. No counterpoint. There's nothing really interesting, there's no conversation.”

Maybe if Kamaal had come out on time, there would be.

This past August, amani olu projects, in conjunction with P.P.O.W Gallery, presented Young Curators, New Ideas II, a curator focused exhibition that examined new voices in contemporary art through the perspective of seven New York based curators. The varied micro-exhibitions experimented with curatorial practices and an exploration of ideas as physical form and featured the work of:

-Low Museum curated by Karen Archey: works by Daniel Chew, Jason Lazarus, Tara White.
-In Heaven curated by Cecilia Jurado: works by Tom Fruin and Norma Markley.
-1973 curated by Megha Ralapati: Jaret Vadera’s 1973 is originally from an educational video that has been manipulated to become a physical representation of the way the mind constructs and shapes information.
-The Individual & The Family curated by Jose Ruiz: works by Alejandro Diaz, Las Hermanas Iglesias, J&J, Jessica Ann Peavy, and Bryan Zanisnik.
-Comet Fever curated by Nico Wheadon: works by Taylor Baldwin, Boyd Holbrook, Dawit L. Petros, Segtram, and Noelle Lorraine Williams.
-Inaugural Reference Archive and Library curated by Cleopatra’s (Bridget Donahue, Bridget Finn, Kate McNamara, Erin Somerville): Cleopatra’s questions what curating means to those who define themselves as curators.
-Deconstructing the Female Gaze curated by Women in Photography (Amy Elkins & Cara Phillips): examines the work of Michele Abeles, Tierney Gearon, Els Vanden Meersch and Victoria Sambunaris.

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