Greetings! It's been a while, my apologies. As it has tended to do, life has been quite busy. Lots of really fun events in the past few weeks coupled with business travels and a brutal cold. But it's been far too long since a Monday Mixtape!

There's been a ton of music released in the past month or so, none bigger than A Tribe Called Quest's final album, We Got It From Here...Thank You 4 Your service. And what an unbelievable final album. You know that Tribe would never dishonor the late great Phife Dawg (who might have seen mortality knocking on the door) by making an album after this, and it's an honor to get something as well done as this album.

I would put this album on par with Beats, Rhymes, and Life. Both Midnight Marauders and The Low End Theory are hip-hop classics located in the upper echelon of rap, so it's silly and impossible to try to compare this to those. But DAMN this first track! My favorite part is when Q-Tip comes back in ("Reputation ain't glowing / Reparations ain't flowing...") in the middle of Jarobi's bars - so sick. Q-tip absolutely annihilates this track, one of my favorites of the year.

Q-Tip produced the entire album himself, pasting one last stamp on his legacy, a man at the highest of heights amongst titans of rap. This man produced some of the best hip-hop albums of all time and was part of the greatest hip-hop group of all time, had one of the most iconic voices, and his influence on rap is monumental.

With all this adoration, I have to include my Best of Tribe playlist which I made when Phife passed away.

Jim James new solo album is a must hear for any fans of his. "Here in Spirit" is my favorite track on the album, a precious song with James' patented vocals bellowing and bouncing through his mansions of melodies. He bleeds what he sings, I believe it all.

If you like this track from Horse Thief, 2014's Worst Band Name (says a very well known blog, Layers & Sounds), please check out their debut album from 2014, particularly "Human Geographer" and "Come On."

WHO THE HELL do you compare these guys to?? They sound a little bit like another bit of an unknown band (that I saw open for Radiohead years back) that's also pretty out there, Other Lives. I always like to compare weird and unique bands to Radiohead, but I just don't hear it here. Anyways, I'm excited for a new album as their new track "Another Youth" is pretty badass.

Jai Wolf is some sort of DJ I heard about years ago from my buddy who had a really interesting mixtape. I hadn't really heard from him since (I wasn't really looking around though), but this is a pretty catchy tracks, one consistently on repeat for me.

And we end with Tribe's "Lost Somebody," a tribute to the Phife, the five foot assassin with the roughneck business. For all that Tribe was and all the success bestowed upon Q-Tip as the mastermind, Tribe would NEVER have been what it was without Phife. RIP