We the People....

Album: We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service (2016)
Charted: 77
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Songfacts®:

  • The first single from We Got It From Here, Thank You For Your Service finds Q-Tip and Phife Dawg rapping about racial and religious discrimination in America:

    All you Black folks, you must go
    All you Mexicans, you must go
    And all you poor folks, you must go
    Muslims and gays, boy, we hate your ways
    So all you bad folks, you must go


    Q-Tip and Phife had in mind the then-looming election, when as part of Donald Trump's presidential campaign, he said that he wanted to deport 11 million people.
  • Q-Tip spoke to Beats Radio about the call-to-arms to rise against the voices of bigotry, saying:

    "We're just lovely musicians and artists and that's all we do, is speak and paint pictures and try to speak to a climate but hopefully we will call some sort of uprising internally in that young Jimmy Carter and that young Angela Davis. Hopefully we will, 'cause that's the type of thing we do. And that's why 'We The People' is more of an encompassing and not just us - it's all of us as people."
  • The song's tense feel is enhanced by a sample of Black Sabbath's "Behind the Wall of Sleep" from their 1970 self-titled album. Beck borrowed from the same track for his Odelay tune "Hotwax."
  • A Tribe Called Quest performed this song on the November 12, 2016 episode of Saturday Night Live, which was guest-hosted by comedian Dave Chappelle. Q-Tip, Jarobi White and Ali Shaheed Muhammad took to the stage twice as the musical guest, performing "The Space Program" as well.
  • The Tribe was working on We Got It From Here when Phife Dawg died from diabetes complications in March 2016. The album's title was the one the late rapper wanted, and although the other members did not understand its meaning, they went with the name as he liked it.

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