The Ummah

American band

The Ummah was a music production collective, composed of members Q Tip and Ali Shaheed Muhammad of A Tribe Called Quest, and the late Jay Dee (also known as J Dilla) of the Detroit based group Slum Village. Occasional members included Raphael Saadiq, and D'Angelo. In addition to producing nearly the entirety of A Tribe Called Quest's fourth and fifth albums, the Ummah provided backing tracks and remixes for a notable array of hip hop and contemporary R&B artists, including Busta Rhymes, Whitney Houston, Keith Murray, the Brand New Heavies, Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, and Jon B. The group was so named because two of its members (Tip and Ali) are devout Muslims. The word "ummah" is Arabic for "community", "nation", or "brotherhood". Generally, the term refers to the global Muslim population.

The collective took shape around 1995; veteran keyboardist Amp Fiddler introduced Jay Dee (who at the time was shopping for a deal for his group) to Q Tip during the 1994 Lollapalooza. Tip was impressed enough by Jay Dee's soulful productions to invite him as an addition to Tribe's music production team, which until then consisted of Tip and occasionally Ali Shaheed.

According to Q Tip, productions credited to the Ummah were made individually by its members. Thus, the contributing member was given a songwriting credit for their work. Its first work, Beats, Rhymes and Life, was criticized for moving away from the group's earlier, denser, and bottom heavy sound exemplified by tracks such as "Scenario" and "Oh My God." The new sound, which now leaned towards a more laid back and polished tone, would be embraced a little more with the release of Tribe's "Find a Way" from its fifth album, The Love Movement, although the album itself received a lukewarm reception, and no second proper single or video was released. Following this and the split of A Tribe Called Quest, Q Tip and Jay Dee continued to collaborate under the Ummah moniker, producing all of Tip's solo album Amplified, with the exception of two tracks from DJ Scratch. For several reasons, including label complications, Tip's solo career became largely inactive while Jay Dee and D'Angelo went on to form the Soulquarians with other like minded artists. Although A Tribe Called Quest briefly reunited to release "ICU (Doin' It)" in 2003, the Ummah did not collaborate again after that, and Jay Dee's death on February 10, 2006 from complications of Lupus ended the project definitively. Despite the well known projects and collaborations the collective did, people would erroneously assume that The Ummah was another name, or perhaps even an alter ego of Q Tip. As a result, many contributions by J Dilla would go overlooked and unnoticed. Looking back at the collective's formation and history, in an interview, Q Tip stated: