Your iconic summer

TRIBE CALLED QUEST | JOÃO GILBERTO | BUTTHOLE SURFERS | B-52’S
STEELY DAN | ALAN AND RICHARD BISHOP | GEORGE MICHAEL | “KIDD” JORDAN
WIRE | TEENAGE JESUS & THE JERKS | THE FEELIES | CHARLIE HADEN | YAZ
THE EX WITH GÉTATCHÈW MÈKURYA | RHYS CHATHAM | JUDAS PRIEST

Photograph: Jive Records

A Tribe Called Quest

With Rock the Bells tour: Nikon at Jones Beach Theater; August 3, $39.50–$125

Landmark achievement: An integral part of the freewheeling Native Tongues collective (along with De La Soul and the Jungle Brothers), the Queens trio—rappers Q-Tip and Phife Dawg and DJ-producer Ali Shaheed Muhammad—ushered in hip-hop’s creative glory days in the late ’80s and early ’90s.

Why see them now: While Kanye West, Lupe Fiasco and Kidz in the Hall might have brought smart, eclectic rap back to the forefront recently, the new jacks lack the gravitas (and, Kanye excepted, the stage presence) of their musical godfathers. Meanwhile, hip-hop’s original metrosexual, Q-Tip, will do double duty at Rock the Bells, also performing songs from The Renaissance, his first solo album in almost a decade. (Tribe’s own sixth album? Still MIA.) “Rock the Bells is important because of the great combination of artists at different parts of their career,” Q-Tip says of the traveling festival, which this year pairs old-guardsmen Tribe, De La, Rakim, the Pharcyde and Nas with upstarts like Jay Electronica, Spank Rock and the Cool Kids.

Photograph: Imogen Brown

I’m officially obsessed
J. Nicholson, 28, Sunnyside, Queens; publicist

“Aside from Stetsasonic, Tribe was the first hip-hop group to use jazz samples. Their sound was amazing—I’d never heard anything like it. My family was always talking about jazz. I didn’t understand it when I was younger, but then I noticed some of their [old jazz] records being sampled in the songs I love. Because of [producer] J Dilla and Tribe, I search for records even today.”