So I picked-up the 2015 edition 2LP of Peoples Instinctive Travels And The Paths of Rhythm, mainly in the hope of getting a nice loud version of ‘Footprints’. This was a dummy move, as it turns out it actually sounds worse than my single vinyl version. Blame not-so-great modern re-mastering, maybe? At least I finally have ‘Go Ahead In The Rain’ on record though…
Anyhoo, it wasn’t a complete wash, since Media Assassin Harry Allen was brought in to pen some wonderful liner notes for this 25th anniversary version:
How is it you can buy ‘collectible’ vinyl versions of every two-bit demo from every MC Joe Six-Pack and DJ Lunchbox from New Jersey in 1992, but this tape has never hit YouTube?
The closest we have are snippets of this other, later demo tape, with early versions of three album cuts and two never-released pieces.
The story of this tape hitting ebay can be found in this 2011 blog post, along with an update where Q-Tip debunks that it’s the first demo: ‘The tribe demo on ebay is not even the 1st one. About 20-30 of those circulated. The original one w/1st bonita is the real.’ Then in 2016, DJ Shadow played the whole of the ‘Native Tongue’ track on BBC Radio (I mean, if anyone could justify dropping almost $900 on a TDK cassette, it’s that Slurpee mixtape guy).
Here, Q-Tip mentions his appearance on Jungle Brother’s ‘The Promo’ from 1989, so perhaps this is the tape that got them signed to Jive? According to Harry’s article, the very first demo was shopped around in 1987 and no one was the slightest bit interested.
In an alternative timeline somewhere, ‘Funky Fire’, ‘Routine’, ‘Dust (My Pal)’ and ‘Native Tongue’ were issued for 2023’s Record Store Day on a black 12-inch single, and all was well for a while.