As DJ Ali Shaheed Muhammad says, in his own quiet and considered way, “hip hop is a young boy’s sport”. Yet, in August, Muhammad and his group, A Tribe Called Quest, will be touring Australia for the very first time, 25 years after they first got together.

Back then, in 1985, Bob Hawke was Prime Minister, Nelson Mandela was still in prison, a-ha, Foreigner and Tears For Fears had the three highest-selling singles, and I was three years away from being born. Ali has some trouble with that last fact. “Oh my god,” he laughs. “Oh my god. OK. Sorry. Had to digest that one for a little bit.”

Do you have a lot of moments like that, when you realise that you have been around for so long, and that half the people coming to your shows weren’t alive when you started out?
It wasn’t until we did a tour in 2006, and we would ask people who was seeing Tribe Called Quest for the first time, and you would have 80-percent of the crowd throwing their hands up. It’s just mind-blowing to think about that.

But every now and again, someone will make a statement like you did, and you really have to think about that. It is mind-blowing. In my mind, I still have a youthful spirit, and I feel like all of this was just yesterday. But in actuality, 20 years is a long time. But Tip and I, and even Phife are all working on solo projects [Ali has just finished producing the debut for Ireland’s The Kanyu Tree ], and we’re all still very active and writing with other people. So for us, time didn’t stop, and we still have this youthful mentality, because there hasn’t really been a moment where we’ve all stopped and had a chance to soak it all in. But every now and again you have an “oh my god” moment, like I did just then. It’s weird. It really is weird.

Are you guys conscious of stopping before you get too old?
Well, it’s not necessarily about stopping before you get old; it’s when you have nothing left to say. If you don’t have a purpose then you should definitely stop. And I think that’s partially what it was, when we disbanded in 1998 – the purpose just wasn’t there, and all the reasons we got together got kind of lost.

But beyond that, absolutely. If you’ve lost your purpose, not only in life but whatever you’re in pursuit of, then you should take a moment to re-evaluate. And you may remember in taking that pause – I’m not saying quit – but take a pause to be reflective, and you may find a purpose, or a renewed purpose with which to proceed. And if you can’t find that, that purpose, then it’s time to do something different. And that relates to music, or to school, or whatever it is, y’know?

And do you feel like you guys have got that together, you’ve got that purpose back?
As far as our live shows go, yeah, there’s certainly a purpose. Coming to Australia for the first time? That’s something that we have not achieved. And there’s a definite purpose for that.

What took you so long to make it out here?
[Laughs] Well, we like to play hard to get. And when you play hard to get, you’ve really gotta come up with – no, let me stop playing. It’s just a matter of the timing. Back then, the offers that came in, they never covered the preferences we had to make the journey. And we battled with promoters – not only in Australia, but all over the world. We even wrote a song, Rap Promoters, because of our frustration with promoters and the business of promoting hip hop music, especially live performances.

It’s been a struggle, y’know? And I was just saying this to someone else – A Tribe Called Quest, we look up to The Beatles, Earth, Wind and Fire, The Rolling Stones – y’know, groups that have created a legacy, and not just a musical one, but a business one, a structural one. And we felt that, for hip hop, there should definitely be that sort of respect given to rap groups. And so we commanded a lot, we asked a lot from people, and unfortunately a lot of people had a narrow vision compared to what we would ask, just because no one else was asking for what we were. But it’s just because we had those iconic groups to look up to, and we wanted to raise the bar of what people were seeing at live shows. So unfortunately back then, things didn’t work out.

Also, we didn’t know we were going to break up when we did. Had we known that, I think we would have seized those opportunities. But it just never panned out. And after the break-up, of course, things went quiet.

But just recently we’ve done a couple of shows, and it seems like there’s revived interest in the group. And then came the phone call from Australia, and we’re like, “Hell yeah!”. We’ve never been there, and we want to go and touch the people. And we’re blessed that after 21 years in the music business, and not having a new album for 12 years, yet we’ve still got people with an interest in the group. And we’re humbled, and grateful, and we can’t wait to get over there and do it.

Check out Part Two of our extended interview with A Tribe Called Quest, where Ali muses on the state of hip hop today.