Disco de A Tribe Called Quest: “The Low End Theory”

Ok....I'm a fifty year old mother to 4 teenagers. I've stayed pretty "hip" thru the years, but always resisted rap or hip-hop. My son and I recently had a discussion about the genre and he suggested I start with the Tribe. Damn. I love it. Can't stop playing it.

It's the best sound I've heard in a verrry long time.

I'm new again. That's what music is supposed to do. Make the experience of sound new. Get it, all you old rocksters.

Watch MTV for even a second these days and you're likely to get only kiddie music, and second rate hip hop packaged under beat-you-over-the-head marketing campaigns. You only wish the Tribe's masterful rhythms and rhymes were the rule rather than the exception. Only Tip and Phife seem capable of using pop culture references and hip hop machismo to create lyrics that have a deeper meaning than at first glance.

The album takes you straight in with "Excursions," which has the best bassline of maybe any rock or rap song ever recorded. It lures you through its driving rhythm and doesn't let up until the disc is over

Both rappers have their best showcase songs on this album: "Butter" for Phife and "Voices from the Abstract" for Q-Tip. Both songs are clever and have rhythms that are irrestible.

And for the all-star song, you can't beat "Scenario," which features Busta Rhymes' best rhymes ever.

Check out "Show Business," "Check the Rhime," and everything else. There's not one bad track, which is a quality no disc made by a major label in the past two years can boast. It's a masterpiece.

This one is a fairly recent pruchase for me. I got it a few years ago, after hearing enough buzz and reading enough positive reviews to tip the scale. Thing is, I am not a hip-hop guy. I dig jazz, funk, all kinds of rock, even some electronica, but until I got this album I never was able to get into rap. I guess I just didn't connect to it, and I was turned off by the violence and macho posturing. Well, none of that here. What we have on the "low end theory" is intelligent worldplay, a smooth delivery, and the most laid-back, jazzy set of grooves I've ever heard on anything even resembling hip-hop. There's interesting commentary on the music scene, discussion of the connection between hip-hop and bebop, and a little tribute to Ron Carter the famous jazz bassist who plays on a couple tracks here. It's an engaging and fun listen from beginning to end (except maybe "date rape," my least favorite track here). If all hip-hop was like this, I would be a fan of the genre. But I still notice Nellie at the top of the charts, while many people don't even know that this exists. It's a sad, sad world.

A Tribe Called Quest is by far my favorite Rap group ever because no one can or has matched the skills these guys have. They know how to make albums as well as hits. No one can say that they are really into Hip-hop if they don't agree with what I'm saying. I remember when this first came out. Everybody was talking about this album and everyone that knew I had it wanted to borrow it from me. It was crazy! The Low End Theory is the climax of ATCQ's history and it will go down as one of the greatest contributions to rap. Just check this album out if you haven't done so already and you will know exactly what I mean. I highly recommend buying their first album as well, People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm, which is as good if not better than this. Get Midnight Marauders after you have completely immersed and absorbed yourself in the first two albums and your looking for more. But don't look any further past their third album for more of the jazzy sound that you like because their style changes a little and is quite different than their first three albums. But their later albums are better than a lot of stuff that is out there now. Oh yeah if your a casual listener than buy the Anthology but if you really want to hear ATCQ than just buy their albums. I promise you will not regret it. A Tribe Called Quest is the Best! PEACE!

10-STAR LP!!!!

This should be your hip hop album collection starter.

Buy it, listen and watch your taste in hip hop music change for the better.

Enough said.