A Tribe Called Quest Vinyl, CD & Tape

The founders of Conscious Rap

Legendary hip hop group A Tribe Called Quest formed in the Queens borough of New York in 1988: the four emerged from local collective Native Tongues, which also counted the Jungle Brothers and crew De La Soul among its members. Born out of an early shared enthusiasm for music between school friends Q-Tip and Phife Dawg, the duo soon grew into a quartet through collaborations with DJ Ali Shaheed Muhammad and rapper Jarobi White, creating an East Coast landmark with their first vinyl People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm in 1990. The record’s positive lyrics and rich range of topics, including safe sex and vegetarianism, probably made them the founders of Conscious Rap, and the beats are composed of samples from a wide variety of genres, including rock and jazz – their hit single Can I Kick It? builds on Lou Reed’s signature song Walk on the Wild Side, for example, and thus soon became the crew’s very own signature tune. In a review, the renowned hip-hop magazine The Source gave the album a full five out of five mics – the very first record to receive the magazine’s top award.

The Antithesis of Macho Rap

The Low End Theory then showed A Tribe Called Quest 1991 from a jazz-oriented side: Q-Tips and Muhammad’s casual beats reduced and yet expressive, Q-Tips and Phife Dawg’s lyrics socially critical and often sarcastic. The singles Scenario and Check the Rhime landed the Tribe in the charts – because Phife Dawg, who still rhymed rather restrainedly on the first work, now also proved himself as a top league MC alongside Q-Tip. The record also gave a stage to their colleague Busta Rhymes, whose solo success was slowly building, and as an antithesis to stereotypical macho rap, The Low End Theory was soon considered a milestone. The crew had also downsized now, with Jarobi White dropping out at the start of recording to pursue his passion for cooking. With the vinyl Midnight Marauders, the Tribe followed up two years later with an experimental record with deliberate funk borrowings; in the space of a year, a million copies were sold. Recorded in the basement of Phife Dawg’s grandmother, the three created another record that convinced fans and the press – at the Lollapalooza festival in 1994, they played the stage alongside the Beastie Boys and the Smashing Pumpkins. That year they met producer J Dilla, after which Q-Tip and Muhammad joined forces with him as a producer trio under the name The Ummah, building beats for the Tribe as well as other artists. The group had finally hit the mainstream, running merch like shirts and hoodies with their logo could be found on the streets everywhere now.

A dignified farewell

Recorded in 1996, Beats, Rhymes and Life is considered their most somber work, and also became their first number one album, but opinions were divided. After features on the soundtracks for the films When We Were Kings and Men In Black, the three announced that The Love Movement would be their last album in 1998 – too many personal differences stood in the way of the group. On their last record for the time being, the theme of love is the lyrical focus, and the minimalist production of The Ummah trio creates a dignified farewell for the group. But it wasn‘t over that quickly: in 2003, the Tribe actually recorded another track, but in 2008, Q-Tip made it clear that there would be no reunion. In 2016 Phife Dawg died of diabetes, and in the same year Q-Tip announced that they had finished a new album together before his passing. With We Got It from Here… Thank You 4 Your Service, released on label Get On Down, the legendary rap crew said goodbye for good.