Q-Tip taps Radiohead’s main man

It’s been a quiet nine years for Q-Tip, the charismatic on-again off-again frontman for the seminal Queens, New York, hip-hop quartet A Tribe Called Quest -- one of the most respected rappers to ever rock a mic.

But that doesn’t mean the Abstract Poetic hasn’t been keeping busy. While largely staying out of the public eye during that time, the hard rhyming, famously adenoidal MC recorded two never-released, widely bootlegged albums (“Kamaal the Abstract” in 2002 and 2005’s “Open”) and bounced between every major hip-hop record label with the exception of Island Def Jam before landing at Universal Motown this year. July will finally greet the arrival of Q-Tip’s long gestating CD, “The Renaissance,” his first album to see a commercial release since 1999’s gold-selling “Amplified.”

It’s a monster of a record, with guest appearances by Norah Jones, D’Angelo and Raphael Saadiq -- as well as a vocal contribution by Barack Obama in what must certainly qualify as his first hip-hop “collabo.” But more on all that in a future article.

Over an omakase sushi dinner in New York last week, Q-Tip revealed to The Times that he doesn’t intend to keep up his J.D. Salinger act any longer; the rapper is planning to go back into the studio before the end of the year to cut another album. And although Tip self-produced “The Renaissance,” he’s enlisting the help of a heavyweight Grammy-winning producer for its follow up.

If you’re imagining any of the usual rap rainmakers -- Timbaland or the Neptunes, Pete Rock or DJ Premier -- you’d be wrong. Try Nigel Godrich, the British engineer-producer whose densely layered, atmospheric sound has become closely identified with Radiohead. In fact, Godrich is sometimes referred to as the morose Brit rock group’s “sixth member” for producing every album it’s put out since 1997’s “OK Computer.” But he’s also racked up an impressive list of characteristically downbeat, brooding albums for the likes of Beck and Charlotte Gainsbourg, Air and Pavement.

Godrich is hardly the no-brainer choice for Q-Tip -- himself a Zelig-like figure who turns up all over the pop culture grid and has never been confined by a narrow view of what hip-hop is and isn’t supposed to be -- although it remains to be heard how the two’s musical sensibilities will mesh.

“He’s a big fan of rap,” Q-Tip said of the producer. “It’ll be cool working with him. We’re going to make a film out of the project too.”

And the charter member of the Native Tongues rap collective seems untroubled by the notion that Godrich’s dour sonic palette might detract from rap’s abiding party hearty aesthetic.

“He’s just on some real hip-hop [stuff]. It’s gonna be a lot of sampling,” the rapper said, adding an encomium not often associated with Godrich. “He’s really dope!”

-- Chris Lee

Photo by Stephan Osman / Los Angeles Times