If you felt the last two Tribe Called Quest albums were, let me put it kindly, less engaging than their previous strikes, you weren't alone.

Phife Dawg, a former member of the hugely popular and influential hip-hop group, agrees.

During a conversation at HMV's flagship store last Wednesday, the diminutive rapper spoke candidly about what led to the group calling it quits.

"Basically, the label (Jive) didn't care anymore," says Phife, who just released Ventilation: Da LP, his solo debut. "They supported the first three albums, but didn't care about the last two. And that's one of the reasons why we felt we had to break up ... if we did any more albums for them, it would be in vain."

"I guess (Jive) was getting ready for Britney and 'NSYNC and Backstreet (Boys)," he adds. "After a while, those people will feel the same way we felt."

On Flawless, the killer first single produced by DJ Hi-Tek, Phife slams Jive, hints why "me and my former partner don't talk now," and blasts the ridiculously bad state of hip-hop.

"Jive can't get mad at me for saying what I did when we were under them," he says defiantly.

(What they said was, "Industry rule number four thousand and eighty, record company people are shady" on the Tribe single, Check The Rhime, off Tribe's '91 album, The Low End Theory.)

Phife agrees that he sounds hungrier than he did on Tribe's last effort.

"Yeah, because I could never fully be myself, be who I wanted to be," he says. "There were a lot of things they wouldn't let me say. And then management would come in and interfere.

"I didn't get along with management or with the label, but since we were successful I kept my mouth shut a lot," he says. "Part of it was my fault for not saying anything, and part of it was their fault for trying to play me. So, after a while it was like, 'It's time to go.' "

Hip-hop intellectuals who favoured jazzy, soulful rhythms and rhymes, Tribe Called Quest commanded respect from the Lollapalooza crowd as well as underground hip-hop fans. No surprise, then, that someone such as Phife who has a deep love affair with words gets vexed hearing rappers spout nonsense on their records.

"I hate wasted beats, I hate clones, I hate people who bite (copy) someone else's style," he spits. "It's like Das EFX. They came out with a style, everybody bit it, and they couldn't even use it on their second album."

Ask Phife if he thinks hip-hop will return to its more creative days and he replies swiftly, "I know it will. What goes around comes around."