Side Note

A Tribe Called Quest’s video career is over

Today, iconic hip hop group Tribe Called Quest released what they are calling their last video, an eight-minute space-themed, star-studded visual for the song “Space Program” off of their 2016 album We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service. Unfortunately, the rad-sounding video is currently only available in full on Apple Music. So if you, like me, have already used up your 3-month free trial, now is a great time to look back on the group’s first video for the debut single of their career “I Left My Wallet in El Segundo.”

The song, released in 1990 off of the group’s debut album People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm, chronicles the group’s trip from Brooklyn to El Segundo using Q-Tip’s mother’s car. The video features deserted roads, a visit to a police station, a fashionable trek through the desert, and a man in a sombrero that many on the internet seem to believe is Peter Dinklage. As the title implies, Q-Tip realizes he forgot something at the end of the song.

Looking at it from 28 years’ distance, the video is enough to bring a single happy tear to one���s eye. The group’s members look like young kids, but the partly animated video still shows off their signature fashion style and graphics that would come to influence a long line of hip hop artists, as well as ’90s rap aesthetics. At the video’s end, on-screen titles introduce the now-famous members, including the late Phife Dawg, who died eight months before We Got it From Here was released. It’s a fun, simple, almost campy video with a look that artists today would no doubt love to recreate. And with A Tribe Called Quest implying that they will no longer be making any videos, “I Left My Wallet in El Segundo” is a comforting early ’90s artifact to revisit, and reflect on the group’s longevity.