First off, massive props to artist David Proch. He’s been doing these hip-hop portraits for a while now, and I’ve been eyeing a print or commission for quite some time. I reached out for some art to go along with this piece, and he sure did deliver.
David did two adjoining pieces to accompany my two-part discography revisit focused on the Native Tongues clique and NYC hip-hop. Today’s piece is focusing on A Tribe Called Quest, and I’ll be following up in March with a piece on De La Soul. However, you can see the full painting below.
First off, this piece was finished a week ago, and we’ve since lost Trugoy the Dove, aka Plug 2, of De La Soul. As I’m writing this intro, the news is still fresh and the tributes are pouring in. De La Soul is one of the two most important groups of my youth, and as you’re about to see I spend a good amount of time in this piece talking about death in the hip-hop community. I just want to send some thoughts to Trugoy, his friends and family, and all of De La’s fans who are rightfully broken up over this. I’ve made some minor edits to this piece to reflect the news.
This painting now, though…it means more to me than it did yesterday, and it meant a lot yesterday. It’s full of life – the movement of the Tribe-inspired stick figures as they transform into the De La Soul-inspired flowers, the colors going from Tribe’s red, black, and green to De La Soul’s pink, yellow, and red, and the way they work separately or as a single piece. Fantastic work. Go check out David!
I talked about Native Tongues back in my Gang Starr piece but as a refresher, they were a hip-hop collective started in the late 1980s that made albums together, lifted each other up, and put a sound out on the radio that was drastically different than most groups at the time. It was a loose collective, but the core four groups consisted of The Jungle Brothers, De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, and Black Sheep. There were Native Tongues associated groups, like Queen Latifah, Monie Love, Fu-Schnickens, and Leaders of the New School. I’m going to be talking about all of these groups and more, so get comfortable because each individual post is approaching novella length.
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A Tribe Called Quest is a singularly important group across the history of hip-hop and one of my most cherished groups of all time. On their debut album, Tribe was made up of four people: Q-Tip (aka Tip, aka The Abstract), Phife Dawg (aka Phife, aka The Phifer, aka The Five-Foot Assassin, aka The Funky Diabetic, aka Mutty Ranks, aka Don Juice), Jarobi White (or just Jarobi), and their DJ, Ali Shaheed Muhammed (or just Ali, aka Shah).
Tribe wasn’t the most commercially successful hip-hop group; many hip-hop groups of the early-90s sold better and had a wider audience and presence. But Tribe was a rapper’s favorite group, a kid from Brooklyn’s favorite group. They redefined cool in hip-hop. They were young, talented, and laced perfect jazz loops over snares and high hats. You can dance to Tribe songs, but most of them are designed to play in basements, sitting in a cloud of smoke, bopping your head, and only talking about the music you’re hearing and the message it’s telling you.
Tribe evokes so many memories for me. Hearing Tribe reminds me of every significant place in my Brooklyn youth. I listened to The Low-End Theory on my friend Dave’s stoop, on his boombox, pissing off the neighbors; I heard “Scenario” at arcades, parties, corner stores, school hallways, and community pools, the soundtrack for an entire summer; I listened in my room, laying on the floor on a fold out and trying to pull apart the samples on “Jazz (We Got),” realizing that I just don’t know anything about jazz.
The thing that made A Tribe Called Quest stand out is that they were hip-hop fans who became hip-hop artists. The hip-hop artists who preceded Tribe were defining the genre while creating their records. They were still figuring it all out - they were local celebrities putting out albums that were incredible but lacked the nuance and complexity we associate with rap from the 1990s and on. As mentioned in my Gang Starr piece, 1988 was the year that hip-hop first figured out how it was going to present itself to the world. Tribe grew up listening to the albums and artists that came before that; they respected the work and used their love of the form to elevate it. But they respected those who came before them - they shouted them out on so many of their tracks. They declared themselves fans of hip-hop first and creators of hip-hop second. As they grew, they never forgot that they started as teenagers, listening to hip-hop, and dreaming about becoming rappers. It’s meaningful that Q-Tip first appeared on wax in 1988, as a featured artist on the Jungle Brother’s debut album - it signifies that Tribe was there when hip-hop first broke out. Q-Tip, Phife, Jarobi, and Ali were hip-hop’s first students and, together, they formed hip-hop’s first prodigy.
I got to see Tribe twice in concert, both times at festivals. Lollapalooza 1994 and the Tibetan Freedom Concert. I have tremendous regrets that I never got to see them in some small club somewhere or even during their 2008 reunion tour. But when I did see them, I saw them alongside a large crowd of people who stood in the hot summer sun, bopped their heads, closed their eyes, and felt the rhythm, felt the vibes, and felt the knowledge wash over them.
Despite how much respect I give to Tribe, their music is frozen in amber for me. I’ve listened to The Low-End Theory the most; I know every single word. I’ve heard People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm and Midnight Marauders way fewer times; enough to know the songs but not enough to go deep. I’ve listened to Beats, Rhymes and Life a handful of times, and Thank You 4 Ur Service…We Got It From Here had a strong month on rotation when it first came out. And that’s it - never listened to the solo albums or The Love Movement. Never really tried to connect Tribe to my life, the greater hip-hop world, or the entirety of history and culture.
But now I’ve taken it all in and written a whole lot about it. And not just Tribe, but the Native Tongues collective, NYC hip-hop in the 1990s and beyond, the East/West coast rivalry, and my own life. I’m saving some things for my De La Soul piece in March, so if you’re reading this and angrily thinking, “Where’s Queen Latifah? Where’s Black Sheep? Where’s 3rd Bass!” I assure you, they’re coming.
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The Listening + Table of Contents
Between January 30th and February 7th, I listened to and annotated the following albums.
Straight Out The Jungle (1988) by the Jungle Brothers
People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm (1990) by A Tribe Called Quest
The Low-End Theory (1991) by A Tribe Called Quest
Midnight Marauders (1993) by A Tribe Called Quest
Beats, Rhymes and Life (1996) by A Tribe Called Quest
The Love Movement (1998) by A Tribe Called Quest
The Solo Albums: Amplified (1999) by Q-Tip, Ventilation (2000) by Phife Dawg, The Renaissance (2008) by Q-Tip, and Kamaal the Abstract (2009) by Q-Tip
We Got it From Here…Thank You 4 Your Service (2016) by A Tribe Called Quest
Forever (2018) by Phife Dawg (posthumously)
I also listened to and briefly annotated F.U. Don’t Take It Personal (1992) by the Fu-Schnickens and Ill Communication (1994) by the Beastie Boys. A whole lot of singles, too, to remind me of some of the sounds and narratives of the period. I listened to a lot of Native Tongues tracks, J Dilla, Slum Village, KRS-One, Public Enemy, Ultramagentic MCs, Naughty By Nature, Beatnuts, Da Bush Babees, Special Ed, Biggie Smalls, 2Pac, Dr. Dre, and too many others to list. Finally, a special shout-out to the oldhead I met at the upstairs bar at Clyde’s Gallery Place who overheard me walking my friend Ron through the structure of this piece and said, “You need to talk about Jadakiss.” I went back and listened to him and The Lox; I didn’t find a place for any of it in this piece, but I’ll back you up and say, “Jada’s a real one.”
It’s been a real 1990s hip-hop party around these parts.
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1. Straight Out The Jungle (1988)
I’m starting this Tribe piece with a Jungle Brothers album for several reasons:
Straight Out The Jungle is the first album from the Native Tongues collective and the first album that Q-Tip appears on. Q-Tip’s persona on this album is the germ of a concept that will eventually become A Tribe Called Quest.
I want to contextualize Tribe within the Native Tongues' collective and the early-90s hip-hop scene. It’s one thing to talk about the influence Tribe had on hip-hop, but given Tribe’s “we’re all family” approach to hip-hop, it becomes important to focus on the impact the Native Tongues collective has on Tribe.
But most selfishly, Straight Out The Jungle is an absolute banger of an album that I feel has been sort of lost to time. At least compared to many of the other 1988 hip-hop albums. If I’m being honest, I haven’t listened to it since the late-80s/early-90s, myself. So I wanted to revisit it, and after listening to it, I wanted to write about it. My blog, my rules, baby!
Straight Out The Jungle provides the blueprint for the Native Tongues' sound and themes. A little jazz mixed in the funk samples, conscientious afro-centric lyrics mixed in with dick jokes and self-deprecating dance tracks, and appearances by fellow Native Tongue members. Straight Out The Jungle has the absolute earworm, “I’ll House You,” which anyone who came up listening to hip-hop in the 80s knows and can get down to.
The Native Tongues collective makes fun songs. I’m probably going to use the word “fun” way too often, but also wait until I get to De La Soul. A lot of modern hip-hop has lost its fun factor, so it’s refreshing and soul-healing to go back to some of these albums and just smile. An example on this album is “Jimbrowski,” a song about the penis and, specifically, how the penis drives the male ego.
In the evenin' when you're dreamin'
Wake up in the mornin', you must start schemin' 'cause
Say what?
Jimbrowski's on your mind (your mind)
Takin' up most your time (your time)
From what I can tell, this song probably leads to the slang term “Jimmy,” for penis. Since I love talking about the origin of slang, let me theorize on this a bit.
On Boogie Down Productions' excellent By All Means Necessary (which was released seven months before Straight Out The Jungle,) KRS-One spits on the song “Jimmy:”
Good for a present, great for lovers
Demonstrated by The Jungle Brothers
Protect your Jimmy and keep it fresh
They're Jimmy Hats by KRS
KRS-One attributed the term “Jimmy” to the Jungle Brothers and then extrapolated the slang to Jimmy hats, which from that point on became slang for condoms. “Jimmy” and “Jimmy hats” were then used in many rap songs throughout the 90s.
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Interlude: These Condom Tracks Worked
I didn’t know a whole about sex as a teen (no internet!), but I knew I needed to have a condom in case it ever happened. I carried around a condom in my wallet as a way to say, “I’m down and safe!” Just this condom ring, pressed through the leather and looking very obvious. That condom, five dollars, and maybe some photos of my family because I was 50 years old when I was 14 years old. But I was down, I was safe.
My parents bought into this Outdoor World timeshare-style spot. You sign up to enter a contest for a free vacation at the mall, get notified you won, go to the place, and some folks convince you to buy in. I loved going out to the South Jersey location with my family. I was a Brooklyn kid, and I didn’t know anything about woods or lakes, but Outdoor World had both and it was fun and different.
Outdoor World also had girls from cities I didn’t usually meet girls from. That’s how I met Melanie, my only summer fling. She was from Philly, and our paths intersected during two different trips that summer. The first time we made out, I tried to be a cool Brooklyn kid which maybe worked but probably didn’t. The second time I came prepared - condom in the wallet, ready to mess around if I was called to do so. I remember walking around with her and just casually finding reasons to pull my wallet out to reveal that ridiculous condom ring until she finally said, “I’m not ready for sex yet.”
I was embarrassed as all hell, but I managed to compose myself and replied, “Oh, that’s cool. I keep it just in case,” to which she responded, “So you have a lot of random sex?” and I didn’t know HOW to respond to that question except for getting flustered. I quickly moved on, and so did Melanie - she started hooking up with some guy from Philly.
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Now, onto Tribe. I want to talk about the audacity of Q-Tip on this album. He appears on the third track, “Black is Black.” This is Q-Tip’s first appearance on vinyl, and his first words are:
Now I'm from A Tribe Called Quest
And I'm here tonight with the Jungle Brothers
And we about to get into this thing called
Black is black is black is black
Why is that audacious? A Tribe Called Quest isn’t a group yet! There’s no Phife, there’s no Jarobi, and no contract - A Tribe Called Quest album won’t come out until two years later! The concept of A Tribe Called Quest is purely aspirational! It just shows the drive of this man. To manifest this group, to speak it into existence on vinyl. To announce your future (maybe!) band on someone else’s album! And you know what happens later on the album? On the track “The Promo?” This motherfucker ANNOUNCES A TRIBE CALLED QUEST ALBUM:
Q-Tip, (Q-Tip) from A Tribe Called Quest
On the Jungle Brothers album (Oh yes)
So get the ducats, it's coming out soon
A month after March, two before June
It's nice, with Ali Shaheed Muhammad
My DJ who is real dominant
He and I form the funky Tribe
Since this album dropped in November 1988, it sounds like Q-Tip is saying the first Tribe album will be out in April 1989. A Tribe Called Quest hasn’t formed yet, Q-Tip only namedrops himself and Ali, and the first Tribe album comes out a full year later in April 1990. The audacity of this man. I love it. I love everything about Q-Tip, but I also love how much this sets the stage for who the Native Tongues will become: they will exist beyond this album. There will be more Jungle Brothers. There will be A Tribe Called Quest. Eventually, there will be De La Soul and Black Sheep and many tangential acts. They are family, they support each other, and Q-Tip’s envisioned A Tribe Called Quest will eventually dominate NYC hip-hop through the 90s.
So, with that, let’s get to the first Tribe album.
2. People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm (1990)
Tribe’s second album, The Low-End Theory, is such a masterpiece that it’s easy to forget its predecessor, People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm, was probably the best rap album ever made when it first came out. Production-wise, there had been nothing like it - varied samples from funk, R&B, jazz, and rock tracks, a mix of tempos, and lyrical content that touches on everything from Black life in America (“Footprints”) to STDs (“Pubic Enemy”) to vegetarianism (“Ham & Eggs”) to centering youth-lead movements (“Youthful Expression”) to leaving one’s wallet in El Segundo (“I Left My Wallet in El Segundo”). There are both important songs and playful songs, but the important songs are also playful, and the playful songs are also important. And then there is, of course, “Bonita Applebum,” the sexiest song on a mixtape, no matter the mixtape.
Despite how strong this album is, it just doesn’t sound like a fully-realized Tribe album, as we now know one to be. Phife is hardly on it (by his admission, he was unserious at first), and the production is a bit messy at times (the “Living for the City” sample on “Footprints” is maddening). Q-Tip is often hailed as a rap genius and a perfectionist, maybe the original rap genius and perfectionist, but this album sounded like him learning how to put a rap album together. He had complete artistic freedom and tried a lot of new and interesting things. Ultimately, he made a handful of hip-hop classics and then went back into the studio to make one of the greatest records of all time.
3. The Low-End Theory (1991)
The Low-End Theory was a masterpiece before we had language to explain how a rap album could be a masterpiece. It was simply the best rap album ever recorded when it was released. The hip-hop community had never heard an album like it, and a new discourse on hip-hop needed to be formulated to describe it accurately. As the years passed and the community obtained clarity on what makes a great rap album, and as more great rap albums came out with none of them being as good as The Low-End Theory, only then could this album be labeled a masterpiece.
This album is so many things. It is peak production for its time - the samples are a perfect mix of funk and jazz, and the overall engineering of these beats is done with relentless attention to detail. It’s musically timeless - you can play these beats in any decade, and they would feel contemporary. Lyrically, it’s a time capsule - it captures the rappers, the movements, and the concerns of the early 1990s and, in particular, early 1990s NYC. There is a lot of bravado in the rap of this period, with many MCs calling themselves the best to ever do it. And while there is some of that on this album, there are also so many shout-outs and features; more than we’ve seen up to that point and more than we’ve seen since, probably. It presents rappers as a community - arbiters of taste and style, spokespeople for a population that the wider culture at the time doesn’t speak to. It’s dancy, it’s hard, it’s fun - sometimes all three of those things at once, and perfectly all of those things at once on its final track, “Scenario.”
A breakdown of The Low-End Theory track-by-track:
— “Excursions” –
The song opens with Q-Tip recalling a conversation with his dad about how music is cyclical and hip-hop is a natural extension of be-bop. Q-Tip was 16 when his father died in 1986, before any Tribe records came out. Tip often attributes his eventual production style to his dad’s extensive jazz record collection. I just think it’s a wonderful remembrance on Tip’s part to start The Low-End Theory with a nod to his relationship with his dad.
The song evolves from there and becomes a call to Tribe’s themes of positivity (“Get in the zone of positivity, not negativity, ‘cause we gotta strive for longevity”), supporting the community (“Ya gotta be a winner all the time, can’t fall prey to a hip-hop crime”), and being sincere (“You must be honest and true to the next, don’t be phony and expect one not to flex”). In general, these are the central tenets of the NYC conscientious hip-hop movement that centered on the Native Tongues collective, Public Enemy, and Boogie Down Productions but, in my opinion, was best articulated by Tribe. And that beat- an Art Blakey sample that loops with Q-Tip opening up for several bars before the drums come on - is perfectly executed.
— “Buggin’ Out”—
Michael Rapaport directed a documentary on A Tribe Called Quest (Beats, Rhymes, & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest), and he spent what felt like an hour on how Phife delivered the “Yo” at the beginning of this song. It was a good delivery, I guess, but the dude made it seem like it was the single greatest lyrical delivery of all time.
I wasn’t a fan of the documentary, honestly. I felt like it put Q-Tip in a bad light. It painted his perfectionism and drive as the reason behind Tribe breaking up, and in turn, Tribe’s breakup was the sole driving force leaving Phife behind by the rap game. But I don’t know - Phife was a beloved rapper. His cadence and tenor were unmatched, his rhymes were fun, and he landed features outside of Tribe. “Buggin’ Out” was, in many ways, his arrival on this album and in hip-hop. He could have taken that anywhere…but he didn’t. A lot of the stories about Phife’s time in Tribe are about how he was unserious about the trade at first, but you can just as easily interpret him as the kind of guy who expected things. Honestly, I felt colder toward Phife after watching the Tribe documentary, and I never liked feeling that way. In trying to make him look sympathetic, he came off looking like a brat. I never understood how Rapaport got to ride his Zebrahead juice for so long. That man always felt off, like another dude who just expects stuff without putting in the work.
All that to say, Phife was incredible on this track, and Q-Tip’s production brought out the best in Phife. They always worked better together.
And fuck Michael Rapaport.
— “Rap Promoter” —
I mention this in my Gang Starr piece, but in the 90s we start to get more and more songs about how soulless record companies have co-opted the rap industry. “Rap Promoter” is one of two songs on The Low-End Theory that centers on the evils of the record industry. This song focuses on promoters who either try to screw performers out of money or fail to do the basic things to make them comfortable. Q-Tip is playful on this track and delivers a very pleasurable rhyme with:
I want chicken and orange juice, that's what's on my rider
And my occasional potato by Ore-Ida
Don't forget my pastry make sure they're tasty
I’m not the type to be pushy, or hasty
Q-Tip is, I believe, a vegetarian at this point, so I don’t think chicken is on his rider - but it fits the lyric well. You get that cross-bar near rhyme with “chicken,” the second syllable of “orange,” “on,” and the third syllable of “occasion.” I can see why he used it; vegetarian or not, chicken works better than “tofu.” If I were a musician of any kind, my rider would be veggies and dip before the show and pizza and mozzarella sticks afterward.
— “Butter” —
This song is all Phife on verses, with Q-tip solely on the chorus - something new to the Tribe dynamic. “Butter” is the type of song in Phife’s wheelhouse - he was always kind of short, cute, scrappy, and self-deprecating, so a song about how he gets girls because he’s “smooth like butter” is just about right. I like to picture him as one of those single-serve diner butter pats: a single dollop in a foil packet. He’s so short! He dubbed himself the “Five-Foot Assassin” and “Malik, the Five-Foot Freak.”
The first verse of this song is about a girl named Flo, who all Phife’s friends warned him about (Flo rhymes with ho, so you see where this is going), but Phife ignores their warnings and gets together with her. Well, surprising no one, Flo plays Phife, but fear not, he’ll find another because he’s “got the crazy game and [he’s] smooth like butter.”
The second verse, however, deals with something that many, conscientious rap groups at the time got completely wrong, causing many classic songs of the era to age terribly: songs about how women should act.
I think these types of songs were probably well-intended but misled; they had one of two themes:
Be you! Don’t put on make-up or extensions or whatever!
Don’t have sex with people.
The second verse of “Butter” is a clear example of #1. Just a whole lot of bars like this:
You looked in the mirror, didn't know what to do
Yesterday your eyes were brown but today they are blue
Your whole appearance is a lie and it could never be true
And if you really liked yourself then you would try and be you
Tribe didn’t have a lot of #2 in their lyrics, honestly, but don’t worry - I’ll find a reason to bring it up later.
— “Verses from the Abstract” —
As a reminder, Q-Tip also went by the moniker The Abstract; this song is all Q-Tip. I often tell folks that this song is the sleeper hit of the record: smooth as hell, with jazz legend Ron Carter laying down the bass to give a smoke-filled basement of a jazz club vibe. Q-Tip has some great lyrics, but what I love about this song is how many 80s/90s rappers are name-dropped with the refrain, “[So-and-so] is in the house.” It makes me wonder how many of these rappers were actually in the studio while Tribe was recording. I have to imagine some were. Indulge me, please, as I give some background on the folks who are “in the house.”
Phife is in the house. You all know who this is.
Uncle Mike is in the house. This refers to Ali Shaheed Muhammed’s uncle who used to DJ family house parties. Eight-year-old Ali first learned to spin on Uncle Mike’s turntables.
Bob Power and Tim Latham are in the house. They’re the studio engineers on the album.
Wise Men is in the house. I don’t know who this is referring to. Does it refer to Wise from Stetsasonic, a pioneering rap group of the early 80s? Is it a reference to De La Soul or Jungle Brothers? Each group had three members. I have a theory but no way to prove it - Black Sheep, a hip-hop duo and member of Native Tongues whose debut album also dropped in 1991, isn’t name-dropped on this track. My theory is that Q-Tip was referencing them. Nothing in their lyrics is about them being “wise men,” but it’s in line with how the Native Tongues would reference themselves. The only thing I have to back this up is that the next three name-drops are rap groups; two of them fellow Native Tongues members and the other is a Native Tongues affiliate.
The Brand Nubes are in the house. This is a reference to Brand Nubian, another Afrocentric rap group that was all about positivity, etc. One of their members, Grand Puba, left the group after their debut album, and their follow-up single was a hardcore song called “Punks Jump Up To Get Beat Down.” Even as a kid it felt like a significant tonal shift. I’ll get back to Brand Nubian when I talk about “The Business.”
The J Beez, they in the house. This is about the Jungle Brothers, the granddaddies of the Native Tongues.
De La, they in the house. De La Soul, the Native Tongues trio and, in my opinion, the only true peers of A Tribe Called Quest. I’m gonna write plenty about them in a future piece.
Craig is in the house. This is a tough one! Craig Mack didn’t break out until 1994, but he was active since the late-80s. The remix to his only hit single, 1994’s “Flava In Ya Ear,” is the second song to feature Busta Rhymes as a solo artist. The first song is A Tribe Called Quest’s “Oh My God.” So I can see a Busta Rhymes connection here, and Craig Mack happens to be in the studio on the day Q-Tip is recording. That’s my theory.
Pete Rock and CL Smooth are in the house. They’re called out separately on the song, but together they form the legendary duo Pete Rock & CL Smooth. Pete Rock has produced at least a rap song or two that you’ve heard, and many more than that if you’re a hip-hop fan.
Ultramags is in the house. The Ultramegnetic MCs, whose 1998 debut album Critical Beatdown is the common ancestor for all underground/indie rap.
Nice & Smooth is in the house. Greg Nice and Smooth B formed this incredible group. They were responsible for the danceable “Hip-Hop Junkies” and the cautionary “Sometimes I Rhyme Slow.” They were also on “DWYCK,” a song I talked about in my Gang Starr piece.
Big Daddy Kane is in the house. A hip-hop pioneer and early innovator; a rapper who cultivated the sexy vibe early on but also had incredible lyrical skills to back it up.
Beatnuts is in the house. I love this shout-out. Beatnuts is one of those NYC bands that I know and remember hearing, but I couldn’t tell you a single song of theirs. Just a rap band that has been sort of lost to time but certainly had a moment. Like Da Bush Babees and the next guy getting a shout-out…
Special Ed is in the house. The last shout-out on the song is none other than one of my favorite rappers from this era, the incredibly fun and talented Special Ed. I know every lyric to his first two albums, “Youngest In Charge” and “Legal.” I’ve pushed these albums on people as prime examples of how fun late-80s/early-90s hip could be. Special Ed’s song “I Got It Made” is full of joy - he’s rapping about all of the things he can buy with the money he makes off his lyrics. The list includes 1) things he definitely could not buy, like “an island of [his] very own” and 2) things anyone can buy like “when [his] dishes got dirty, [he] got Cascade.” At one point in that song he raps, “I got a frog,” and in the video, he pulls a frog out of his pocket. It is the wildest flex. I love Special Ed. Please go listen to him.
— “Show Business” —
The second song on this album about the evils of the recording industry. If “Rap Promoter” is about concert promotion, “Show Business” is about record labels forcing musicians to sell out, and bootleggers ripping recordings to sell on street corners. As a frequent purchaser of bootlegs back in the day, I’ll plead the fifth on that one. I understand that artists put in work, and artists need to get paid. I also understand that exposure to these albums in my youth turned me into a lifelong fan who has spent more than the cost of the album on concerts, merch, and other stuff. But let’s talk about something else; let’s talk about what this song was originally about and take another moment to explore the complicated relationship even the most conscientious of hip-hop had with women (I told you I’d get back to it) and gay men (new topic!).
“Show Business” was originally recorded as a song called “Georgie Porgie.” The lyrics to “Georgie Porgie” were quite possibly the absolute worst representation of hip-hop culture’s attitude toward gay men at the time. At a minimum, every rapper used gay slurs in their lyrics. It is unfortunate and true. Not many groups were hateful enough to dedicate an entire song against gay men …but one example is the nearly-released A Tribe Called Quest/Brand Nubian collaboration, “Georgie Porgie.” And it doesn’t sit right, at all, with most fans these days - a song like this coming from a group that is otherwise synonymous with progress, knowledge, and positivity. Just from the opening lyric, from Q-Tip, no less, you know exactly where this is going:
In the beginning, there was Adam and Eve
But some try to make it look like Adam and Steve
The label flat-out rejected the song. Tribe kept the beat and changed the lyrics to be about the evils of show business. BUT I HAVE MORE TO SAY!
The original “Georgie Porgie” featured the three members of Brand Nubian: Lord Jamal, Grand Puba, and Sadat X. When the label blocked the song from appearing on The Low-End Theory, Grand Puba was so furious that he refused to be on “Show Business.” Puba’s lyrics were unquestionably terrible and probably the most aggressively homophobic of the bunch. So who is Grand Puba?
Puba was probably the stand-out voice from Brand Nubian, another Afrocentric, conscientious rap group from NYC in the early 90s. Shortly after the release of their debut album, which was around the same time as The Low-End Theory, Puba decided to follow his break-out-star status and go solo. He took DJ Alamo with him.
Now, I liked Brand Nubian as a 13-year-old when they first came out. They had that vibe! They preached about being true to yourself, supporting the community, etc.! Also, the internet didn’t exist, and I didn’t know shit outside of my own worldview! Looking back, most of their songs aged terribly. We just need to look at their biggest hit, the song, “Slow Down,” which is essentially about how women should behave.
The first verse by Sadat X is about how women shouldn’t smoke crack. I agree! No one should; maybe we don’t have to call out women. Lord Jamar’s verse is about how certain women use sex to get to a man’s pockets. At least he talked about ONE particular woman and not ALL women, I guess. Puba’s verse, however, is about how women shouldn’t have sex unless it’s with him. That is the read, not an exaggeration. Puba wants a line of virgins.
This last bit is a persistent throughline in conscientious hip-hop of the 1990s - women shouldn’t have sex with TOO many people - and you see it pop up quite often.
All this to say, hip-hop in the 90s completely centered on the straight man’s experience, and most of it still does.
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Interlude: Oh No, Not Q-Tip
I’ve been with Liz for over seven years now, and my love for hip-hop has infected her. One of the first groups we started jibing on together was A Tribe Called Quest. She was a huge fan of “We The People” off of We Got It From Here…Thank You 4 Your Service, and she chased that vibe to some of their other tracks. She has grown to love Tribe. Q-Tip, in particular.
She also serves as my editor on these pieces, and part of that role is listening to me babble about the things I want to write about and helping me shape them into a cohesive story. “Georgie Porgie” came up, and after I finished explaining the history of the beat and the song, Liz said, “Oh no…not Q-Tip.”
This led to a larger discussion about hip-hop’s troubled history with the gay community and the different hip-hop subcultures that have intersected with and completely fucked the narrative on LGBTQ people. Gay men were usually mocked, and were quite often put into a context of “deserving to be murdered.” Gay women were either attractive lesbians who existed for the male gaze or were likewise mocked and subject to threats. Liz referenced “We The People,” a song that mocks folks who disparage the LGBTQ community, and said that it’s hard to connect the guy who was on “Georgie Porgie” to the man who was on “We The People.”
It reminded me of a line I recently heard from Spike Jonze’s excellent Beastie Boys Story. On the song “Sure Shot,” MCA spits:
I want to say a little something that's long overdue
The disrespect to women has got to be through
To all the mothers and the sisters and the wives and friends
I want to offer my love and respect to the end
In 2023, that seems like such a small, bare minimum thing to say. In 1994, it was a huge thing to say, especially in a rap song. In Beastie Boys Story, Ad-Rock and Mike D reflected on a time when a reporter asked MCA, “Isn’t [that lyric] hypocritical, coming from the “Fight For Your Right (To Party)” guy?”
MCA responded, “I’d rather be a hypocrite than never change.”
We didn’t have the internet back then. We didn’t have any competing perspectives outside of what we were told growing up. Folks can say, “Well you should have gone out and found competing perspectives!” as if some teenager was going to audit a class on race, gender, sexuality, feminism, etc. at Brooklyn College. All we had is what we saw and what we heard, period. And I have nothing but respect for the folks who listened and learned as they got older. Those people are way more interesting to me than someone who has never adapted.
Anyway, we’re all good here. Liz still loves Q-Tip.
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— “Vibes and Stuff”—
This song is just very chill, with no real message or anything worth about, so I’ll focus on two popular hip-hop tropes in this song: shouting out cities, and paying respect to dead rappers. Everyone likes to hear their city get mentioned in a rap song, which means your city is cool and not too white. So what geographical locations do Tribe shout out for having “the vibes?” And what are my opinions on these locations? We got…
Long Island. I know Brooklyn is technically on the long island of Long Island fame, and I have much love for a particular era of Brooklyn, but for Long Island…I’d have to say it does not have the vibes for me, and it never has. My first job out of college was in Northern Virginia, but in a twist of fate, I had to spend two weeks out of every month somewhere on Long Island. I didn’t have my license, because I was a DC resident by way of Brooklyn, so I was forced to hang out within a one-mile radius of my Extended Stay America. That one-mile radius was bleak, with a Wendy’s and an Entemann’s Outlet and not much else. That’s all I know about Long Island and its supposed vibes. I guess Jones Beach is there, too. I saw Aerosmith and Four Non-Blondes there, my first concert. I say hey! Minor vibes, I guess.
Brooklyn. I was born and raised in South Brooklyn, on an unnamed one-block strip between Red Hook and Carroll Gardens. I was third-generation born and raised in the Red Hook/Carroll Gardens area, and I have plenty of fond memories and a handful of traumatic ones. Red Hook got popular in the 1990s, and the trend never slowed down, so my family got systematically priced out. My parents were the last holdouts from my family; they moved to New Jersey in 2022. Most of the Brooklyn I remember is now filled with people who spend more than they have on soulless apartments. So in 1991, Brooklyn had the vibes. Now it does not have the vibes.
Queens. My dad used to work in Queens. He was a printer on a large four-color press. I used to love going to work with him; the machines seemed impossibly large, and the food carts always had these dope little microwavable sausage biscuits. My dad printed boxes for liquor companies and perfumes, and at one particularly fantastic job, he printed baseball cards. The Mets also played in Queens, and I used to have a bit of fun on Rockaway Beach. I’d say Queens had the vibes in 1991, and I don’t know anything about current Queens.
Uptown. I used to venture uptown occasionally. What you have to understand is that Harlem is FAR from Brooklyn, and Brooklyn had everything I needed. My most recent visit to Harlem was to the Schoenberg Center for a comic book festival. Uptown had and has the vibes.
Now Rule (which refers to New Rochelle). I don't think I’ve ever been to New Rochelle. I trust Q-Tip fully on this one.
Upstate. Upstate, for those who don’t know, is every square inch of New York north of the Bronx. I have people in the Buffalo area, and I’ve seen some vibes there. My sister lives in Suffern, but I don’t think she’d classify it as having “the vibes.” I don’t know…Albany, maybe? Either way, I think saying upstate has the vibes is categorically false, in 1991 and today. Sorry, Tip. (Liz here: I used to live in New Hartford and Utica as a child, and in addition to overwhelming trauma, I also remember some amazing dip cones from a place called the Ice Cream Factory which I just googled, and which is still there. Vibes kept that place open.)
DC. Hell yeah, DC got the vibes.
Maryland. Baltimore and its surrounding areas, sure. But that panhandle? And the shore? No vibes. (Liz here: I used to live in Maryland, and all of it is a delight.)
Virginia. I live in Arlington, and I’ll proudly say South Arlington- particularly Green Valley- got the vibes. The rest of Northern Virginia is vibeless. Richmond’s got the vibes. Been a while since I was in Norfolk/Virginia Beach area. Winchester and Abingdon have some great downtowns for brunch and shopping, but I don’t think those are the vibes Q-Tip was talking about.
Carolina. I’ve only been to Raleigh and Charleston, and I’ve had fun in both cities, but I am also embarrassed to say the only Carolina cities I’ve been to are Raleigh and Charleston. In this scenario, I have no vibes.
Out West. Sure, some vibes. Right along that coast. Go too far in, though, and watch out. Different frequency.
Bahamas. Yeah, sure. Vibes. Why not?
Over in Europe. Once again, this is a huge area of which at least 99% has zero vibes. Having said that, I’ve caught slivers of vibes in Paris, Florence, Rome, Madrid, Munich, Budapest, Prague, and London.
Q-Tip also uses the song to shout out some hip-hop luminaries who had passed on. I’d like to give them their respect:
MC Trouble. A talented young MC who tragically died three months before her album was released. Epileptic seizure.
Trouble T Roy. A dancer with Heavy D and the Boyz. He died after falling off of a platform. He has been immortalized in the Pete Rock & CL Smooth song “They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)”
DJ Scott La Rock. A talented, pioneering DJ and producer. He was a social worker at a group home when he met KRS-One, who was residing there. Together they formed Boogie Down Productions (BDP) and released the game-changing 1988 album Criminal Minded. La Rock was shot and killed while trying to defuse a heated situation halfway through making BDP’s follow-up album, By All Means Necessary. If you ever find yourself at a concert and some oldhead onstage demands silence for DJ Scott La Rock, you give it.
Cowboy from Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. He’s credited with coining the term “hip-hop” in 1978. Died of a cocaine overdose in 1989.
— “The Infamous Date Rape”—
As a reminder, part of why I consider this album a masterpiece is that it is a lyrical time capsule, which is the opposite of being lyrically timeless.
For context, I can’t think of another song from this era that tries to shed a light on the ills of date rape. And that’s exactly what this song tried to do…for one of the three verses. Q-Tip’s opening verse does an admirable job for the time and is pretty direct in saying, “No means no!”
This is the case, the situation is sticky
Should you try to kiss or hint towards a hickey?
Not even, you can ask Steven
If the vibe ain't right, huh, ya leavin’
And that’s where the song ends!
Hahahaaaa nope! Phife comes in on the second verse, and that man does NOT know what this song is about. The first sign of trouble is in the line, “If she tries to front, that's when you start to dis her,” and from there, it proceeds to tell the story of a man who wears a woman down and, afterward, with the complete, Phife sings, “girly girl cried rape, yo, I didn't really need it.” Terrible look, Phife. Criminal look.
And then Q-Tip comes in with one more verse to save this song! This one is about the real reason the girl isn’t down to get down…she’s on her period.
They tried?
— “Check the Rhime” —
The first single off this album and, for most of us at the time, the first demonstration of The Low-End Theory’s sound and feel. The beat is jazzy as hell, and Q-Tip and Phife’s deliveries are seamless. The video called back to The Beatles on the roof of Abby Records, except these cats are in Queens, and they’re Black, and the audience below is Black. They’re young, handsome, and talented; they’re having the time of their lives. There wasn’t a kid in NYC who didn’t answer, “All the time, Phife,” in response to, “You on point, Tip?” This is one of those songs I’ll never forget the words to for as long as I live; the nostalgia factor is simply too high. I’ve heard it played so many times in my youth that it now has permanent residence in my brain.
Some fun bits:
Phife references Tribe’s previous album when he says, “Now if you say my style is whack that’s where you’re dead wrong. I slayed that buddy in El Segundo and pushed it along.” Buddy” refers to the De La Soul song “Buddy;” the remix was the first song to put Phife on wax. El Segundo is a reference to “I Left My Wallet in El Segundo,” a song that Phife didn’t rhyme on but was in the video as a silent partner. Push it along is a reference to the song “Push it Along” which features a Phife verse.
Q-Tip directly references MC Hammer with the line:
Proper. What you say, Hammer? Proper.
Rap is not pop if you call it that and stop.
The line probably references MC Hammer’s Pepsi commercial from 1991, where MC Hammer needs a break from his concert, drinks some Coke, starts singing Morris Albert’s “Feelings,” is given some Pepsi from a fan, says, “Proper,” and goes back to dancing. I take the line to mean that MC Hammer is/was a rapper, and if Hammer stopped at “Proper,” without all the dancing, he’d remain a rapper.Q-Tip has claimed that the line wasn’t a dis, but…I don’t know, man. MC Hammer spent two albums’ worth of time as a pop sensation before eventually going back to his Oakland roots. Da Funky Headhunter had Hammer acting hard again, and on the song “Break ‘Em Off Something Proper,” MC Hammer goes after Q-Tip, saying he was going to put the NYC rapper on a “hoe stroll.” There are many stories about how MC Hammer is not someone you want to mess with; he will fuck you up. Q-Tip did not make fun of Hammer again and, the story has it, reconciled with the man.
— “Everything is Fair” —
A song about crime, specifically the drive for money that gets you deeper and deeper into trouble. The track follows a man in a relationship with the woman he sells drugs for, and he has no way out because he loves the money and the booty. It’s a fun song, and I don’t have much to say about it beyond that.
— “Jazz (We’ve Got)” —
Probably the best beat on the album. A head-bobbing bass and sax run over the song from time to time. Phife (who has Trinidadian roots) even brings out his Caribbean accent for this one, smoothing out the sound. This song has several of my all-time favorite rap lyrics, so let’s get into some of them:
“Stern, firm, and young with a laid-back tongue, the aim to succeed and achieve at 21.” The opening rhyme on the track perfectly sums up Q-Tip while having some well-executed cross-bar rhymes.
“So push it along, trails we blaze, don’t deserve the gong, don’t deserve the praise.” I’ve always read this lyric as rap is work. Blazing trails is all part of the job. As work, maybe it doesn’t deserve to be maligned, but it can always be better. This is an attitude I’ve carried with me for most of my life. Liz loves it.
“I don’t really mind if it’s over your head, ‘cuz the job of resurrectors is to wake up the dead.” Again - there’s this sense of Q-Tip saying “Look, it is my job to create beats that bring the party back to life.” Rap is work.
“I know some brothers wonder, can Phife really kick it? Some even want to dis me, but why sweat it?” This is a fun callback to the fact that Q-Tip, being a perfectionist, actually wrote all of the lyrics on the song “Can I Kick It?” Ghostwriting in rap happens, but it is largely frowned upon by the masses. Here’s Phife saying, “Yes, Tip wrote my rhymes on the first album. But here I am, showing you that I can rap.”
“Aye yo, but wait back it up, ugh, easy back it up. Please let The Abstract embellish on the cut.” I still casually say this line when I have a follow-on thought, no matter the setting. Tip’s delivery is perfect on the album.
“Some say that I’m eccentric because I once had an orgy.” Q-Tip references his appearance on the De La Soul song, “De La Orgee” which isn’t a song as much as it’s De La Soul, Q-Tip, and a bunch of women making sex sounds and jokes.
Q-Tip ends the song by shouting out locations and rappers. There are some repeats (Brand Nubian, for example), but some rappers get their first mention including these:
Queen Latifah gets a shout-out when Q-Tip spits, “I said because Ladies First ya don’t stop,” a reference to Queen Latifah’s song “Ladies First.” Queen La was a member of the Native Tongues clique. I’ll talk more about her in my eventual De La Soul piece.
Leaders of the New School (LONS), the rap group that features at the end of the album, on “Scenario”
Large Professor: Legendary rap producer and an early mentor for Q-Tip
— “Skypager” —
A song about beepers. For folks that don’t remember/weren’t born yet, beepers were these devices we’d wear on our waistband, and they’d let us know that someone was trying to get in touch with us. And I say “we” because, yes, I had a beeper. It was a green Motorola. Beepers were a fashion accessory as much as they were functional devices and, to that end, I’m pretty sure the only person who ever used my beeper was my mom. I should probably explain how they work because this probably all sounds like made-up nonsense.
You’d call someone’s beeper number. You’d get a prompt: a recorded message, telling you to type in a number and press pound (the hashtag symbol). The caller would then enter a string of numbers, ostensibly a phone number, press pound, and hang up. The person with the beeper would get a beep or a vibration, check the tiny screen, and the numbers displayed. The person would then go to a pay phone and call the number that paged them.
That’s the way the user manual would tell you how to use a beeper. But then there were the codes. Let’s say I needed my friend to call me back as quickly as possible because I was in some type of trouble or whatever. In that case, I’d enter “555-123-4567 911.” 911 would let the recipient know it was an emergency. Or if you didn’t want someone to call you back, you just wanted to wish them a pleasant night, you might use code “99” for night-night. Or if you’re hanging out with some girls and you want your friend to come over, you may page the person and use code “80085” for “Boobs.”
In this song, Phife talks about the beeper’s role in booty calls and ends his rhyme with, “You leave code 69, that means you want some.”
— “What?” —
Just a fun and funky song, a real showcase for Q-Tip’s clever wordplay. Most of the song is in the form, “What is a ________ if it doesn’t ________.” For example:
What is a party if it doesn’t really rock?
What’s Duke Ellington without that swing?
Since this is a fun, lighthearted song, I decided to make a fun, lighthearted game out of it. See if you can match the first part of the line to the back half!
— “Scenario” —
This song was a movement. A Tribe Called Quest partnered with Leaders of the New School (LONS) to create a song that would dominate radio stations, MTV and The Box, the playlists at block parties, and the dance floor at every party, with kids circling up and rapping along. Kids would jump into the middle of the circle for their favorite verse. Most folks bided their time, waiting for Busta Rhymes’ verse, hoping that during THIS party THEY would be the ones to take the spotlight and jump in the middle for what were, at the time, the most electric bars ever recorded. I’ve seen fights break out over who got to be in the middle for Busta’s verse.
I often wonder how the other members of LONS must have felt, being in that recording booth and watching Busta spit. Deep in their hearts, they must have realized that he was the star. They must have realized that he would eventually leave them and go on to make platinum-selling albums. LONS were a novelty act, completely unserious sounding. They had a moderate hit off their first album with “Case of the P.T.A.” On that track, you can hear glimmers of who Busta Rhymes will be, but it’s not until “Scenario” that we see the fully-developed form of one of the most talented MCs to ever do it. The controlled chaos of his delivery. The movements, the expressions. He’s a performer. Just watch these other rappers lay down various levels of good, hear their good-to-great verses, bop your head along with them, and then watch Busta Rhymes become a complete fucking star.
This is something I love about A Tribe Called Quest albums - they put other rappers on. They let them shine. Listening to this album more critically than I’ve done in the past, I couldn’t help but compare it to Kanye West’s My Beautiful, Dark, Twisted Fantasy. That album was peak Kanye, a certified masterpiece, largely because Kanye let other people in. He flew in producers, MCs, DJs, rock stars, and artists to collaborate. In his studio, you weren’t allowed to tweet or distract - you were there to contribute and create. Elton John would show up just to be one of the many voices saying, “All of the Lights,” but while he was there, he would listen and give input. The Low-End Theory has that vibe - a bunch of talented people in the community pushing hip-hop along under the guidance of Q-Tip, the maestro.
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Interlude: A True Fuschnick
Following the release of The Low-End Theory, Phife’s spot blew up and he became in demand. This led to some of his first features. One feature that I‘ve always loved was on Fu-Schnicken’s “La Schmoove.” I was introduced to the Fuschnicks with “Ring the Alarm,” but I became a lifelong fan of the Fuschnicks through this song. I remember the MTV video and seeing Phife come out of the audience to start rapping with them. It was at that moment that I said, “Oh, these guys must be cool.”
I bought the Fu-Schnickens album and listened to it nonstop. I still know most of the words to the songs, including Chip-Fu’s lightning-fast rhymes, which he sometimes spits backward; I would read the lyrics in the liner notes to understand what he was saying both forwards and back so that I could accurately mimic it. To this day, I’ll sometimes say “Raggamuffin” backward because of the way it feels on my tongue. Niffumaggar. It’s nice.
There are several Fu-Schnickens’ lyrics that I still say quite often. Examples include:
I will say, “Great!” in response to something that is, in fact, great, and then after a pause, I’d add, “But, like the great Apes, fake your moves, and your ankles I will break,” from “La Schmoove.”
If I need to use the bathroom, I’ll sometimes say, “I gotta jet to my tee-pee, unzip, take a pee-pee,” a lyric Moc Fu spits on “Props.”
Sometimes when I enter a spot I’ll say, “One to the two to the three to the four, all I gotta do is walk through the fucking door,” from “Check it Out.”
Liz didn’t know where these lines came from (although I’m sure I told her a bunch of times, and it’s so weird that she doesn’t retain all of the 90s hip-hop knowledge I routinely push onto her), and she included them in a “How Well Do You Know Jason?” quiz for my birthday one year. She would start the quote and ask which friends could complete it. Slowly it was revealed that ALL of these lines were from an obscure hip-hop album, prompting my friend Marcelo to ask, “So…is Fu-Schnickens your favorite band or something?”
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4. Midnight Marauders (1993)
A lot happened in the rap world between 1991’s The Low-End Theory and 1993’s Midnight Marauders. East Coast and West Coast rap started to undergo a schism. Death Row Records, the West Coast label that would go on to release albums from Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, 2Pac, and others formed in 1991. Tim Dog (East Coast) released a dis track called “Fuck Compton” that Dre responded to on The Chronic (1992). Bad Boy Records, the East Coast label that released albums from Craig Mack, Biggie Smalls, and others formed in 1993. At this point, 2Pac and Biggie were still friends, and dis tracks between East and West coast rappers were more of a sideshow than the main throughline of hip-hop culture.
It was against this backdrop that A Tribe Called Quest released Midnight Marauders. It built upon the perfect production from The Low-End Theory and the underlying message that hip-hop as a community is responsible for itself and the message it pushes over the radio. You didn’t even need to listen to the album to understand that this vision was central to Tribe’s philosophy - you just needed to look at the album’s three covers.
The covers’ red, black, and green borders symbolize the colors of the Pan-African flag. Each album had a different collection of MCs, DJs, hip-hop luminaries, and elder statesmen’s headshots on the cover. The figures are wearing headphones, surprised by the quality of the songs that Tribe produced. Complex counts 83 figures on the covers and gives bios for folks they can identify. It’s a very East-Coast heavy roster, but some West Coast rappers are represented - notably Ice T, Too $hort, and Del the Funky Homosapien. Regardless, it was a tremendous showing of unity across the rap community and something only Tribe could pull off. Unfortunately, it couldn’t stop what was eventually coming.
This album now looks and feels like this distilled moment in time when hip-hop was about love and music. It shows us an alternate history, one where rappers are united, and all the fans need to do is bounce their heads to an “average bounce meter…in the area of 95 BPM,” as we’re told by Laurel Dann in the intro track, “Midnight Marauders Tour Guide.”
The album is fantastic. In some ways better than The Low-End Theory, but with a lesser surprise factor since we now expect a certain level of skill from Tribe. This album is full of a heightened sense of confidence from Phife, who is embracing his star status and rhyming like one. “8 Million Stories” is a great example of how his storytelling improved immensely - capturing the mounting circumstances of his bad day. It started well! He was going to Carvel to get a milkshake…
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Interlude: Carvel, baby!
We were a Carvel family. I had a Carvel cake at almost every birthday party of my childhood, and I have stories about them.
I’ll start with one of my earliest memories. It was my birthday, my parents were hosting a party for me at my Aunt’s house. The Carvel cake was brought out, my family sang happy birthday, I blew out the candles, and they were removed from the cake and licked clean. Before the cake was cut, my uncle asked me to check and see if the cake smelled funny. When I leaned down to smell it, he slammed my face into the still partially-frozen cake. I bounced off, blood coming out of my nose and onto my birthday cake. My family all started yelling at my uncle, ready to kill him.
One year I had a bowling birthday party. I wanted a football-themed cake, so my parents went to Carvel to get me one. At my party, my mom brought out the cake to reveal that the football player was a Cabbage Patch Kid, and it looked like he was shitting in a bush. I’m having a bowling birthday party this year, for my 45th birthday. Maybe it’s time to resurrect this design.
But props to my first (DC superhero) and second (Muppets) birthday cakes. God, I love Carvel cakes and the artists who hand-drew these pictures using nothing but piping gel colored with carcinogens.
Another fun Carvel connection to hip-hop and Jungle Brothers is the Beastie Boys' first single, “Cookie Puss.” In that song they prank call a Carvel, asking where Cookie Puss is, Carvel’s mascot/alien cake. When the Carvel worker doesn’t know where Cookie Puss is, the Beasties yell, “I say yo, I’ll HOUSE you…where’s Cookie Puss at?”
The phrase, “Girl, I’ll house you,” was the ongoing refrain in the Jungle Brothers’ song, “I’ll House You.”
You see, I’m not always JUST rambling…I can bring it back. Is it a weak connection that I used to justify showing some old birthday cakes? ABSOLUTELY. Welcome to my blog, man, it’s free.
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…and through a series of trials, tribulations, and unfortunate events he ends up in the wrong city, his Knicks tickets now useless, and to make matters worse - John Starks (NY’s favorite Knick) gets ejected from the game. Storytelling in hip-hop has become less important these days (some 25-year-old asshole is calling me an “oldhead” right now). Today, top-40 hip-hop has a lot of bravadoes, and story fragments that play on a theme, but the old standard is a three-act story that begins and ends a song. It’s one of the things that separate the dope MCs from the good rappers, and Phife shows his chops on this album as a dope MC.
Phife received his diabetes diagnosis in between The Low-End Theory and Midnight Marauders. This isn’t usually something to note when talking about a group’s music, but it is something to note when talking about Tribe’s story. Phife himself addresses the diagnosis, asking on the track, “Oh My God,” when’s the last time you heard a funky diabetic?
Another song that’s interesting to revisit is “Sucka N****.” On the album, the n-word is spelled out but I won’t be spelling it out, here. The song kind of explains why. The n-word didn’t start appearing in rap songs until the late 80s, primarily introduced through West Coast recording artists. The East Coast was slow to adopt, and on this track, Q-Tip speaks of the meaning of the word and why he uses it:
See, n**** first was used back in the Deep South
Falling out between the dome of the white man's mouth
It means that we will never grow, you know the word dummy
Upper n****s in the community think it's crummy
But I don't, neither does the youth 'cause we embrace
Adversity it goes right with the race
And being that we use it as a term of endearment
N****s start to bug, to the dome is where the fear went
Now the little shorties say it all of the time
And a whole bunch of n****s throw the word in they rhyme
Yo I start to flinch, as I try not to say it
But my lips is like the oowop as I start to spray it
Finally, I know it’s a very popular song that doesn’t need anyone else to write about it, but “Electric Relaxation” is forever. It’s just sexy as hell with a good bit of humor. Phife’s line, “Bust off on your couch, now you got Seaman's Furniture,” will always be funny.
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Interlude: Like Ma Bell
I want to take a moment to bring up one of my favorite Q-Tip features, his contribution to the Beastie Boys’ “Get It Together.” It’s a fun feature, with Q-Tip embracing that Beastie Boys persona and playing off of MCA, Ad-Rock, and Mike D - responding to and finishing their lyrics as they respond to and finish his. Usually, with features, a rapper will come in and lay a verse that, at best, is loosely related to the song’s theme. But on this track, Q-Tip becomes the fourth Beastie Boy. It’s another example of that respect for hip-hop - Q-Tip doesn’t come on a Beastie Boys song and act like it’s a Tribe song; he commits to making it sound like a better Beastie Boys song.
The Beastie Boys didn’t feature many other rappers on their albums, and they didn’t feature on many other rappers' albums (honestly, I can’t think of a single song they featured on). They featured Biz Markie quite a bit, but that pairing makes so much sense - a couple of hip-hop oldheads who occupied a weird corner of the scene. But Q-Tip was a cool NY hip-hop artist who undoubtedly respected the Beasties’ varied production style and wanted to be a part of it. At around the same time, Q-Tip included the Beastie Boys on the Midnight Marauders' cover art. That mutual respect is commendable.
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5. Beats, Rhymes and Life (1996)
Tribe’s vision of hip-hop -a community united in bringing forth a message of positivity to the masses - failed to come to fruition. In the three years since the release of Midnight Marauders, the hip-hop landscape had changed drastically. In November 1994, a year after Marauders was released, 2Pac was shot five times in an NYC studio in what was an apparent robbery. This story is complicated by the fact that Biggie and other Bad Boys affiliates were at the study at the same time. On his way out, on a stretcher, 2Pac gave the finger to Biggie and his crew. The East/West coast beef was no longer confined to dis tracks; the first shots had been fired.
2Pac went to prison on an unrelated assault charge, and while he was locked up, Biggie released the track “Who Shot Ya?” Seen as an admission of guilt by 2Pac, despite Biggie’s claims that the song was recorded before 2Pac got shot, the series of events resulted in the East/West rivalry reaching the point of no return.
Dis tracks continued to pile on.
There was a series of kerfuffles at the August 1995 Source Awards.
2Pac put Biggie’s estranged wife, Faith Evans, on one of his tracks and then started spreading rumors that he had sex with her.
In September of 1995, Big Jake Robles -a close friend and bodyguard of Death Row Records CEO Suge Knight - was shot and killed outside of an Atlanta club. Suge claimed that Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs, CEO of Bad Boys Records, was involved in the shooting.
In December of 1995, Snoop Dogg was recording a music video in my native Red Hook, Brooklyn. Biggie announced that Snoop was in Red Hook on Hot 97, and shortly afterward an unknown gunman shot up the video set.
In May 1996, the video for Snoop and 2Pac’s “2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted” was released, the first in a series of open threats against Biggie. The video featured a 90-second intro where 2Pac confronts an actor playing Biggie Smalls and makes veiled threats.
In June 1996, 2Pac released “Hit ‘Em Up,” a song so violent and specific that it’s hard to consider it a dis track; it was a direct threat to Biggie Smalls, Sean Combs, and the rest of Bad Boys Records.
It was against this backdrop that Beats, Rhymes and Life came out.
I didn’t listen to this album too many times as a teen - I distinctly remember thinking it was kind of boring. I probably haven’t listened to it since 1996, and I noticed that the songs became less familiar the further I went into the album. By the time I got to the end of the album, I couldn’t recognize the songs at all. Listening to it now, with fresh ears, I gotta say: it’s still boring.
Ok, maybe boring isn’t a fair description. It’s quite a laid-back sound without a lot of variation in tempo or sample choices. The snare drum feels consistent across the whole album. From a beats and production standpoint, it sounds like an album you’d have on in the background while you work on a crossword puzzle. Unchallenging but good to bop your head to. The production was done by the Ummah, a collaborative consisting of Q-Tip, Ali Shaheed Muhammed, and J Dilla. I think it’s safe to say J Dilla brought a more subdued sound to Tribe’s beats.
But this is a Tribe album! So surely the lyrics are clever and elevate your consciousness or whatever else! Well, the reason why I’m framing these albums against the East Coast/West Coast beef is that the ripple effects of that conflict are apparent on this album. Q-Tip’s cousin, Consequence, was added to the roster, giving them an overall different dynamic. Tribe’s lyrics are angrier; more aggressive. Still clever! But just a different tone with several of the songs chiming in on East/West Coast beef with a non-committal but still aggressive, “Leave me out of it.”
“The Pressure” is a good example of how Tribe was calling out both sides. In Q-Tip’s verse, he spits:
Now I got hip-hop acts posin' like fat cats
Lex and a Rolex, Moet and a top hat
But what about your contract, slick? Is you proper?
It's time we turned the tables of this hip-hop fable
My read on this is that it’s pointed toward East Coast rappers, where the overall perception is that they were glitz and boats and mansions and dancing. We were certainly in the “flossing” era of East Coast hip-hop, where street-level raps were replaced by braggadocious rhymes about how rich they are. Meanwhile, on the same song, Phife raps:
Now every dog has his day, but eff that, it's my year
All you gat pullin' MC's could never come near
All that bogus type chatter, please put it to rest
It's the Phifer from Quest leavin' venues a mess
You can read this as commentary on the state of rap ,but it’s hard to ignore the fact that 2Pac was dancing around threatening murder in the video to “Hit ‘Em Up.” East Coast rappers certainly talked about killing and robbing, but I think the perception at the time was this was still a predominantly West Coast thing.
“Keeping it Moving” also focuses on East/West Coast beef. Q-Tip raps:
How you get West Coast n****, from West Coast hater?
I could never dis a whole coast, my time is too greater
Yeah, we from the East, the land of originators
You also from the West, the land of innovators
The only difference of the two is the style of the rap
Plus the musical track, this beef shit is so wack
At the end of the track, he shouts out East and West Coast rappers, including:
East Coast: The Pharcyde, Mobb Deep, Biz Markie, Jay-Z (whose debut album came out a month earlier), and others.
West Coast: Hieroglyphics, Dr. Dre, MC Eiht, and others
6. The Love Movement (1998)
In September 1996, two months after the release of Beats, Rhymes and Life, 2Pac was shot and killed in Las Vegas, Nevada. Six months later, in March 1997, Biggie Smalls was shot and killed in Los Angeles. In between and after those killings, Louis Farrakhan hosted a peace summit to try and stop the East/West violence. Before Biggie’s death, Snoop Dogg and Sean Combs held a press conference calling for an end to the violence and the rivalry.
Q-Tip had produced a beat for Biggie with the hopes of including it on Life After Death, but the beat wasn’t included. Following Biggie’s death, Q-Tip used the beat on The Love Movement, for a track called “The Love.” It’s a song about prioritizing love and life because they’re fragile. “Love it when I get spared another day,” Q-Tip spits on the song.
The Love Movement, as an album, focuses on different aspects of love; how we use the word and how we express it. Love for our partners, our friends, our neighborhood, our material items, our families, our rebellion, and our communities. Make no mistake, it is also a pretty boring album with production attributed to The Ummah, but it gets a pass because it feels like a necessary album. Q-Tip and Phife had a lot to say, a lot to live for; the hip-hop community was devastated. The simple beats don’t distract from the lyrics, which feels like a return to peak Tribe verses.
A Tribe Called Quest announced they were breaking up a month before the album came out. We can sing about love, but sometimes we just don’t feel it anymore.
7. The Solo Albums: Amplified (1999), Ventilation (2000), The Renaissance (2008), Kamaal the Abstract (2009)
Solo albums following an important band’s dissolution are oftentimes more misses than hits. Probably because we compare the solo output to the group’s. That’s not particularly fair, as the artists need room to find their sound. So even understanding that going in, I had a hard time getting on board with these albums.
Q-Tip’s Amplified is a dull club record. The jazzy beats of A Tribe Called Quest are replaced with the beeps and boops of a dancy hip-hop record. Soulless and shallow, with entirely uninspired lyrics. A lot of partying, a lot of “I’m the best MC”-ing, a lot of talk of girls and girls and girls. Just a generic hip-hop album, I kept zoning out. And then came the closing song, “Do It, See It, Be It,” which gives a history of Q-Tip and Phife’s relationship, the Native Tongues in the early days, the success of Tribe, and their inevitable break-up. What I found surprising about the song is that it’s a neutral retelling of Tribe’s past. He credits Phife with inspiring him to MC, before getting into the early years and the fame that followed, commenting on how it became too much. Eventually, it started to wear on the band:
It got funky right here, I had to save my life
In the snow after the show, I had a fight wit' Phife
Q-Tip attributed the burning down of his house and studio as the final straw toward ending Tribe:
Plus my house burned down, me and Ang' was in it
My crew was tired and I knew we had to end it
The beat to “Do It, See It, Be It,” is the only funky/jazzy beat on the whole album - it feels like the last Tribe song, even though Phife isn’t on it.
Phife, in the meantime, released Ventilation. He worked with a lot of top-notch producers and the album was surprisingly good. It is a pretty straightforward hip-hop album, with beats reminiscent of what we’d hear out of Tribe. The lyrics are clever, but they just don’t seem as focused as a Tribe album contribution. It just feels like Q-Tip and Phife wrote best when they wrote together. Something was missing with them as solo artists.
Ventilation has a song “Beats, Rhymes & Phife” which, like Q-Tip’s “Do It, Be It, See It,” is a reflection on life leading up to A Tribe Called Quest. Q-Tip isn’t mentioned on the track, but it’s better than dissing Q-Tip, I guess.
Copped at job at Mickey D's, flippin' burgers with cheese
Had to find a better way, cause this wasn't my speed
Tight uniform pants, with the arch in the back
Phone ring, it's for Phife: "What up Shaheed, where you at?"
"Jive, muthafucka, we just signed a contract"
"Say word?" "Word bond, now give that uniform back"
Now I'm happy than a mutha, yo, you can't tell me shit
Couldn't wait to tell my mama: "I'm a celeb now, I quit"
From the tender age of 9, this is all I dreamed of
Hip-hop, the first chick, to ever have me in love
Tell the world my name
Phife would record some features after this album, but this is the last album that’ll be released during his life on which he’s a major contributor.
In 2006 J Dilla of The Ummah, a friend of A Tribe Called Quest, died. 32 years old, blood disorder and lupus.
Q-Tip went on to release two solo albums, and I dug both of them. The Renaissance goes back to a chilled-out vibe with some better turns of phrase in the lyrics, and Kamaal The Abstract has mostly a live band across the tracks with long jazz/funk instrumentals - it reminds me a lot of Guru’s Jazzmatazz series. I see myself putting these albums into the occasional rotation and seeing how they feel over time.
8. We Got It From Here…Thank You 4 Your Service (2016)
On November 13th, 2015, A Tribe Called Quest performed on The Tonight Show. That same night, terrorists in Paris launched three coordinated attacks, including at an Eagles of Death Metal concert, killing 130 people. By Q-Tip’s own account, the energy of their performance combined with the news from Paris motivated the group to go into the studio and start recording music together for the first time in almost 20 years.
On March 22nd, 2016, Phife Dawg passed away. He died from complications related to diabetes. A Tribe Called Quest released the following statement:
Our hearts are heavy. We are devastated. This is something we weren't prepared for although we all know that life is fleeting. It was no secret about his health and his fight. But the fight for his joy and happiness gave him everything he needed. The fight to keep his family happy, his soul happy and those around him happy, gave him complete and unadulterated joy... until he heeded his father's call.
We love his family, his mother, his father, his son, his wife, his nieces, his family here in New York, Atlanta, California and Trinidad.
Thank you for the outpouring of prayers and support from the fans, fellow artists, music outlets, blogs, radio stations, DJ’s, social media and the music community at large. This too is part of his joy and means a lot to him. His family is overwhelmed by the support, well wishes and are thankful. His music and what he’s contributed is seismic and hard to measure. He’s affected us as much as he’s affected all of you. We’re inspired by his daily joy and courage. He wasn’t in pain. He was happy.
We take comfort in knowing he will be beside his grandmother.
On October 27th, 2016, amidstthe looming US presidential election that pitted Donald Trump against Hillary Clinton, A Tribe Called Quest announced their forthcoming sixth and final album: We Got It From Here…Thank You 4 Your Service. On a hand-written note, Q-Tip previewed what we should expect:
No, this isn’t filled with old Phife bars…this is that Pure, unstepped on Pure!! And on November 11th, 2016 we will complete our Paths of Rhythm…Join Us!
Q-Tip made it clear that this wasn’t a cash grab. They were working with Phife on this album up to his death. They pulled in additional MCs to fill out the album, but the plan for this album was hatched alongside Phife, and the rhymes were created for this album.
On Tuesday, November 8th, 2016, Donald Trump was voted in as the 45th President of the United States. At the time, a lot of people, myself included, took a bit of a “Let’s see what happens,” stance. The sky wasn’t falling yet, plus what’s this I’m hearing about Russia? The stupid things we believe, say, and do in order to cope.
That Friday, November 11th, 2016, A Tribe Called Quest released their final album, 26 years after the release of their first album and 17 years after the release of their previous album. I remember this album being my anchor - waking up Friday morning and putting it on, listening to the now deceased Phife Dawg, the maestro Q-Tip, and Jarobi White back with the group for the first time since their first album. Old standbys and new voices coming in - you had Consequence and Busta but also Kanye, Kendrick, Kwali, and 3 Stacks. Jack White on guitar, Elton John’s vocals on the incredible “Solid Wall of Sound.” This album has a lot more rock elements than previous Tribe albums. On the whole, it sounds old and familiar while being a reinvention of the group. Q-Tip and Phife were friends again, and they were rapping about important things.
It’s disconcerting hearing this new direction, the best Tribe album since Midnight Marauders while knowing it’s also their last album.
It’s hard to hear this album without thinking about Tribe’s last performance. The Saturday after the election - Dave Chappelle is hosting Saturday Night Live, and A Tribe Called Quest is the musical guest. Chappelle introduces them - Q-Tip, in his red leather jacket and cowboy hat, tells the crowd to stand and put one first up in the air. He tells the crowd, “We are all one. We are the people.” Ali Shaheed Muhammed starts spinning. Jarobi White backs Q-Tip on lyrics. When Phife’s part comes up, we hear his recorded voice before a painting of him drops to the stage. Half of America, maybe more, was scared. It was a terrible week - not just because of Trump, but because we knew what half of the country wanted - they wanted what Tribe was rapping about. All you Mexicans, you must go. All you Black folks, you must go. Muslims and gays, boy we hate your ways.
For the first time in a long time, Tribe was speaking truth to power. A couple of kids from Queens took the most-watched stage during one of the most tumultuous weeks and told us that we need to fight.
I felt like a teenager again, being inspired by my favorite band.
9. Forever (2022)
I usually don’t care about posthumous albums, but I enjoyed this one. Most of the album had been finished before Phife passed, and he left plans for features, producers, and liner text in his notebooks - the album was constructed to Phife’s vision. It was pretty straightforward as far as beats go, but lyrically it was equal parts fascinating and sad.
For starters, there’s Phife the rap fan in full force. “Wow Factor” is a song that was nothing but Phife listing records, songs, and personalities that he likes. Wu-Tang, Big Daddy Kane, Kanye, and Prince. Don Hathaway and Mary J. Blige. 2Pac and Biggie. Sophia Vergara’s titties. Even Ben Stiller gets a shout-out, maybe the only one he’s ever gotten on any record.
Then there’s the homage to J Dilla, “Dear Dilla,” with Phife talking about the plans they’d had and how they’ll meet again. Q-Tip lays down the chorus, speaking to both Dilla and Phife, telling them that when he meets them again their music will be rocking outer space.
There’s “God Send,” a song about Phife’s wife who donated the kidney he’d needed to stay alive back in 2008. He spent four years on the waitlist, but met the love of his life who, in turn, gave part of herself to save him.
There are songs about his friends, his kids, and his future. The lyrics are from the point of view of a 40-something-year-old man, looking back on his life, understanding the trials he’s been through, and seeing nothing but good days ahead of him.
And he’s gone, you know?
I hate to end this on a sad note, so I’ll end this with some proper respect. If you ever find yourself at a concert and some oldhead is on the stage and they demand silence for Phife Dawg, you give it.
Rest in Peace to Phife, the Five-Foot Assassin. To J Dilla, member of The Umma, talented producer and rapper. To 2Pac and Biggie. To all of the slain rappers who didn’t have to go. To all of the rappers whose health has caught up to them. To all of the rappers with bad luck.
And finally, to Trugoy the Dove of De La Soul. He passed away while Liz was doing the final edit on this piece; a month before De La Soul’s early albums are due to be released digitally, bringing their incredible sound to a new generation of listeners.
To all of y’all, we got it from here…thank you for your service.