Check The Rhime

A Tribe Called Quest

A Tribe Called Quest is my 2nd favorite group of all time, but my favorite hiphop group. These dudes brought the real hip-hop. It was not about gimmicks with them, that's why their music will last for a lifetime. A Tribe needs to be put in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on the 25th year in the music business. With songs like Check The Rhime, Award Tour, & Can I Kick It they are considered rap classics. Let's rock to the music for a minute

Check The Rhime

Bonita Applebum

OKAY YALL FEELING ME NOW!!

I was inspired to write about my favorite hip-hop group after I saw the documentary done by Michael Rapport, Beats Rhymes & Life: The Travels of the Tribe Called Quest of the high and lows of the Quest, what the group was called before they decided to call themselves A Tribe Called Quest. The group consist of Q-Tip, Phife, Ali, and Jabori. This group came through a time when hip-hop was trying to become mainstream. During this time, the only rapper that was "claiming" hip-hop was pop was MC Hammer. But in Q-Tip's lyric from Check the Rhime, inform the world and Hammer "rap is NOT pop if you call it that then STOP". This group was just real and musically awesome. The Tribe incorporated soul, jazz & hip-hop and made it sound so perfect.

Now I was introduced to A Tribe Called Quest in 1993, with "Award Tour". As you know from reading this blog, I am a SOUL/R&B head, so if I like a hip-hop song it had to be great. Music stayed on in my house so the radio would always be playing and I remember one day coming home from school hearing this song. I feel in love with it. I used to go to school singing "We on the award tour with Muhammad my man". Now vibe to this classic.

DON'T THAT REAL HIP-HOP FEEL GOOD!!

About two years later I was introduced to the Tribe again, everyone watched The Wayans Brothers. The theme of the show was "Electric Relaxation". The song is so smooth because the group added jazz into the song, which made the song so epic. Now I know the show was funny, but I used to just watch for the show to hear theme because I liked this song so much. Check it out!

Theme to The Wayans Brothers

Awesome, nah I can't let yall get just a snippet, here's the full song...rock with me 

After this I was not introduced to A Tribe Called Quest until college. My homeboy Sheldon is a big hip-hop fan. So I saw that he had two cd's from the Tribe. I asked him if I can get those so I can listen to it because I next heard a full album from the Tribe. Sheldon is a type of dude that he wants you to hear the REAL hip-hop because he feels that hip-hop is not as real as it used to be. He gave me the The Low End Theory & The Midnight Marauders. From that day, I haven't stop playing these albums. The Low End Theory has became my 4th best hip-hop album of all time. (Oh Sheldon I know it's been 5 years I owe you those albums back, lol.)

The Low End Theory musically was epic. They incorporated jazz with hip-hop which sounded like a perfect marriage. From this album, I learned who Phife really was because I always knew Q-Tip, this was Phife coming out album because lyrically he was awesome. "Yo microphone check 1 2 what is this"....(yall know the rest)

Buggin' Out

Yall can't tell me Phife didn't murder his first vibe, even on the documentary Q-Tip said "when Phife walked out of the booth, they looked at him and said, THAT WAS FIRE!" Of course "Check The Rhime" was a classic, but the musically "Jazz (We Got)" was a masterpiece. The smoothness of the song made you want to listen to what they were saying lyrically.

Jazz

The last song on the album is a collaboration classic that included a young Busta Rhymes that was part of the Leaders of the New School, everybody remembers "as I combine all the juice from the mind". Rock to the first "Touch It Remix"

Scenario (Video)

 

THIS WAS HIP-HOP!!!

After listening to The Low End Theory I thought that these guys are not going to deliver another great album. So, I expected The Midnight Marauders to be disappointing. Now even though, I don't think it better than The Low End Theory but the Tribe delivered with hits like "Award Tour", "Electric Relaxation", and my favorite artist Mary J. Blige sample this song for her hit "Love At First Sight"

Hot Sex

I KNOW YOU HAVE TO BE BUMPING RIGHT NOW!!

Now The Tribe have so much more hits, but I felt from watching the documentary I inspired to write about them. During the documentary, I discovered that Q-Tip produced a lot of the Tribe's music. He grew up with that old soul and jazz and it reminded me of myself because I raised with that old soul. In all, this documentary made me respect and love them more. And that's why they are my favorite hip-hop group of all time.

More Tribe Bangers 

Can I Kick It

With The Zu Nation/Native Tongues: Buddy

Stressed Out

MUST WATCH DOCUMENTARY

WHATS YOUR FAVORITE JOINT FROM TRIBE? WHY?

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