Dave Chappelle Shares Heartfelt Story for A Tribe Called Quest Rock Hall Induction

Dave Chappelle joined the Rock and Roll Hall of Ceremony on Saturday in Cleveland to induct A Tribe Called Quest. During his speech, the famed comic and looked back at the origins of the hip-hop group that began in Queens, New York City in the Eighties.

“It is an honor to induct this next band into the Rock and Roll Hall of fame,” Chappelle began, before attempting to play a recording from the stage mic. After another unsuccessful attempts to play it for the audience, he said, “They’re not gonna let me do it.” Instead, Chappelle read the words himself: “A Tribe Called Quest consists of four members: Ali Shaheed Muhamma, Phife Dawg, Q-Tip, and Jarobi.”

While looking back at their storied career, Chappelle also shared a personal story of how the group played a pivotal part in his life during his hiatus from Hollywood. This is his speech:

Years ago, in a tough time in my life, I read a Chinese proverb that changed my life. And the proverb said that the best meal you can cook is made with ingredients that you already have. And this proverb reminds me of hip-hop, and this proverb reminds me, in particular, of Tribe because Tribe was born out of friendship. Being in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is not something that a Black kid in New York in 1985 would ever even imagine to dream of. And I don’t believe that was ever the point of A Tribe Called Quest. They met on a train. They met at school. They played basketball together. They play around and run with each other. They just use what they had. And the first thing they had was each other, as friends. The next thing they had was their parents’ records. Hip-hop took what came before it and made it strikingly innovative and new and Tribe Called Quest incorporated jazz and soul in a way that hip-hop had never seen before them. They took this talent from the playground into the studio, and in 1990 dropped their first studio album with the wildest title: People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm. What kind of teenager would write some shit like this as a title?

And this is when they first came in the game. The marquee record on that album, we all know it, “Can I Kick It?” And just like that, hip-hop had a new superstar. They only sold like 17,000 records, and in the beginning, like any movement, it started small, but grew throughout the streets. Changed the culture. People started dressing better. People started being kinder, because hip-hop was about being thuggish and all this shit. But when Tribe came out, it was a cue for everybody that you could be cool and not necessarily gangster.

On Sept. 24, 1991, music was never the same. The Red Hot Chili Peppers dropped an album. Nirvana dropped Nevermind, and Tribe Called Quest dropped their second studio album, The Low End Theory, and it was a wrap. This album’s title had one of the illest double entendres ever, The Low End, which refers to the bass in the drums, and it also refers to a Black man’s status in America. And on that album was the big bang of a superstar career that we all know is Busta Rhymes in “Scenario.” 

Tribe has always been about togetherness. On their way up during their ascension, they helped form or found what hip-hop calls the Native Tongues, which included De La Soul and the Jungle Brothers and Queen Latifah and Loni Love and Black Sheep. And all these bands, in their own way, changed our music and our culture really forever. I know this is the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but this movement in hip-hop was the birth of so many great artists, and it started with these men sitting at this table. 

When Phife passed away — yes, make some noise for Phife — though I remember it happened suddenly, I had tickets to a Prince concert, and Phife passed, and the same night for those tickets was Phife’s funeral. Wasn’t even a question. I said, “I’ll see Prince another time.” And we went to the Apollo to say goodbye to one of hip-hop’s heroes. And that was a very difficult time. Afterwards, the next day, everyone met at Q-Tip’s house, and me, an outsider, got to see the Native Tongues be together and mourn their friends. Latifah was there, and everybody was there. De La was there. And we laughed that night. We played old videos of movies we’d all been in. Old records we all made and teased each other, and then at the end of the night, Q-Tip played the last studio record that Phife was on. The album, ironically, was called, Thank You 4 Your Service, We Got It from Here. Tribe, I want to thank you for your service. What you’ve done for our culture means the world for me, but what you did for me that night changed my life, because that night you shared your platform with me and invited me to be on Saturday Night Live with you, and it brought me back to television after 12 years in the cold. And I will always, always be grateful for you. Ladies and gentlemen, make some noise for A Tribe Called Quest.