Q-Tip Curating Hennessy Artistry Tour

A Tribe Called Quest leader Q-Tip has been selected to headline and lead the curation of this year's Hennessy Artistry tour. The program, which uses the alcohol company's dollars and influence to put on shows in New York, Chicago, Miami and Detroit, will feature Tip and The Roots at each stop with local talent opening up the shows. The Abstract recently sat down with Blackbook to talk about how he will go about selecting the other artists involved.

"Obviously, when you go from one city to the other you want to start off with the home-grown talent, people that are indigenous to the area," Q-Tip said. "That's usually the starting point. But we're not necessarily tied into that concept. It could go as what people traditionally listen to in Detroit. If it's a house thing, we'll get a house guy. Those things are all fair game, we're just trying to make each one different than the other."

For Tip, the experience is similar to what he tries to do in his own music: combine genres, tastes and different kinds of people together to create a smooth event. He drew a parallel between that and the product that Hennessy provides for its consumers.

"It's got to feel like they're encompassing different genres. It has to be a great mix of things," he continued. "Because in a literal sense, you're going to see how Hennessy can mix and blend when you're at the venues, what kind of drinks you can have with the Hennessy liquor. So we want to try to echo that with the artists that we choose for the performances."