Saviors of 2016: De La Soul's ...and the Anonymous Nobody

Saviors of 2016 is our series where we recap the year by discussing its most redeeming players.

Music was glorious in 2016, mostly because it felt so reactive. It was reactive to politics (A Tribe Called Quest), of course, but it was also reactive to criticism (Childish Gambino) and anticipation (Frank Ocean) and personal narrative (Beyoncé). Indeed, music in 2016 was even reactive to itself (Kanye), and this made it feel modern and dynamic and exciting. Put down your beef against the Top 40 for a second—this year was good for our ears.

Of course, there’s a distinction between reaction, which is spontaneous and impulsive and disruptive, and response, which is more thoughtful and purposeful and intentional. Sometimes, reaction-music can be great, evidenced by Kanye’s The Life of Pablo, but sometimes it can be frustrating and self-sabotaging, evidenced again by The Life of Pablo. This scrambling approach creates a temporal limitation to the music, and the further we move away from its release, the less it endures. Not so with response-music. Response-music feels emblematic of something greater than its moment. It speaks to wide narratives and transformations and arcs, and because of that interaction, the music embeds itself into our cultural timeline. That’s why things like Beyoncé’s Lemonade, Gambino’s “Awaken, My Love!” and Tribe’s We Got It From Here…Thank You 4 Your Service feel more permanent than—here it comes—Ocean’s Blond.

Quietly residing behind all the big names and hyped comebacks of 2016 lies De La Soul with …and the Anonymous Nobody. Anonymous was De La’s first album since 2004, and its timing was perfect. There were better albums this year, but few packed so many of 2016’s musical trends into one focused and singular work. Anonymous is bold and diverse and expansive. It’s thrilling. It’s hard. It’s beautiful. More than anything, it’s responsive. De La Soul didn’t come back for revenge, they came back to serve. Are you listening?

The best music of the year felt cohesive and collected, and Anonymous is no different. The album is bookended by “Genesis” and “Exodus,” two songs as convicting as they come in 2016. On “Genesis,” Jill Scott asks the listener: “When do you think it’s time to love something the most? When it’s successful?” And as soon as your mind jumps to an answer, she’s already cut you off: “Psh! Uh-uh. That ain’t the time at all.” In the first minute of the album, you’re already having a conversation with it. Anonymous has engaged you. It’s immediate and urgent, and after the album carries you from track to track, the journey ends with “Exodus,” the most important song across the hour. We’ll close with a look at that one.

In the meantime, the path through Anonymous is rich. Two of our previous watermark examples—Lemonade and “Awaken, My Love!”—toyed with, and in some cases exploited, genre. Lemonade sees the world’s biggest pop star dive into everything from country to soul to the hardest side of hip hop, and Awaken sees Gambino—a dorm-room punchline of rap three months ago—tap into his shockingly deep well of creative chops and pull a funk-rock record out of nowhere. Both albums are fun to listen to because they’re musically surprising, and when the novelty fades, you’re still left with two dynamite records. Anonymous, again, does the same thing. De La Soul brings the native, bouncy, dogpile-toned rap you remember them for, but they also bring a song with robot voices. Snoop Dogg joins in for a funk track. Trumpets blare. Pianos tink out some lounge grooves. There’s a swear-I’m-not-kidding hair metal song halfway through. One track will open with a string orchestra and the next will open with beeps and buzzes reminiscent of Daft Punk. It’s awesome. There are new nuggets to notice every time. Modern music is fluid; so is this record. Unreal from a group in which the youngest member is 46.

Music now is older than we expect. De La Soul (average age: 47) had one of the year’s best records, but so did Tribe Called Quest (46). Kanye is 39 now. Beyoncé is 35. Young voices had their place this year, no doubt, but it felt like the most aggressive and forward-facing artists belonged to the old guard. That makes sense though. Young people tend to react; it takes experience to learn how to respond. Of course, this slight rift between our culture’s established musical voices and its new arrivals is shrinking. There’s a shift happening, and soon, the Frank Oceans (29) and Adeles (28) and—wait, wait! that’s his queue!—Chance the Rapper (23! 23! 23!) are going to assert themselves even further than they already have. That’s exciting in a lot of cases (Gambino, Chance, Desiigner, Rae Sremmurd), but in other cases, it’s hard to see what the next move is (Adele, Ocean, even Drake to a degree). Regardless, thank goodness our tried-and-true veterans had wisdom to dispense this year; we needed it.

But thinking about it, “thank goodness” and “we needed it” might be melodramatic phrases. There’s not a lot of hope or optimism in that, and there’s certainly not a lot of action in that. Those are reactive things to say, and music in 2016 was more than just a salve or a bandage, it was unifying and restorative. Finally, the last track of Anonymous. Finally, “Exodus.”

It’s the years that we own and we earned them. See the bridges we built now are burned down. Though the pattern has always been righteous, we know darkness, so we wipe dust from our eyes. People think we are linked to the solving of the problem that’s revolving around music today, but it’s not true. We just do it our way, ‘cause we’re not you. But we know you. We embrace you like brothers, bestow you with an outro that’s also an intro, for the east, and the west, and the central.

With the rhythms and breaks stripped away, we’re left with a message. It’s enigmatic and self-referential, but there’s certainly a power here. You hear it and stop and think, and if you close your eyes, you feel a part of it. There’s a collectiveness, a cooperation. You’re swept up in it, and the moment you sense the unfamiliarity of that community, a single voice breaks through:

We are the present, the past, and the future. Bound by friendship, fueled and inspired by what’s at stake. Saviors, heroes? Nah. Just common contributors hoping that what we created inspires you to selflessly challenge and contribute. Sincerely, anonymously, nobody.

And that’s it. The notes fade and you’re left in the silence. The outro that’s also an intro. Fueled and inspired by what’s at stake. It’s the embodiment of music in 2016. Anonymous is a response to the world around it, but it goes further. It has called you to respond too. Are you listening?