(100) Days of Soundtrack: #21 – A Tribe Called Quest – The Low End Theory

I was already looking into The Low End Theory the day before Phife Dawg passed away. In the effort to understand more hip-hop in full-album terms, it seemed like an appealing place to progress to. Reviews hyped its jazzy heart, its thoughtful content, and frequently made allusions that this would be a fair contender for one of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time. A Tribe Called Quest were an outfit I sort of vaguely knew existed when I first realized rap was a thing, but could tell you nothing about as far as hits. It seemed like an excellent contender for a true classic: the sort of album that real fans all knew despite other rappers becoming more commercially successful. I would have been approximately 8 when Low End Theory came out, so I honestly know nothing about its place in the popular culture of the time, but the sustained reverence with which the album is written about makes it exciting. Seeing one of the members dead the day after first considering the album pushed it up to the front of the queue. Finding out Phife died of diabetes, of all things, made it more eerie, as I’m currently battling the same. For the second time, then, in what has been a particularly rough year for losing classic voices, let’s go back and see what was so special.

From the beginning, there’s a pretty obvious hint as to the title of the album, as “Excursions” revolves around a solid bass groove. This carries along throughout: Low End Theory is a great bass album, even if it is unlikely much of it was written for the album itself. It feels curated from the annals of low end. As for the rapping, it’s some of the most amicable rhyming I’ve come across. ”Here’s a funky introduction of how nice I am” says Phife on “Check the Rhime,” and the song itself seems to confirm. Q-Tip underhand tosses the mic along, and the two rap along conversations and questions to each other before allowing the other to shine. The album has a lot of that sort of building up: “Verses From the Abstract” shouts out to any number of rappers who aren’t on the track. Busta Rhymes. Big Daddy Kane. De La Soul. One does not often see hip-hop giving props to others, but instead there is frequent bragging and self promotion. It’s not that the rhymes on Low End Theory don’t build up their respective voices, but it is continually aware of those who came before, those blazing trails alongside, and those outside the rap game who might be inspired. That’s not to say that there’s no shade tossed along, though it seems to be at the top of the chain more often than other MCs, even though they specify that some unnamed quantity of rap contemporaries are, and I quote, “butt.” We see this on “Show Business,” which seems prescient, calling out the way the music business spits out nobody musicians and is rife with corruption: the bootleggers here could easily be the streaming services of today. Instead of talking about the hustle, Tribe lays out the mechanics of the machine, and how much is influenced by the business side instead of the art side. It’s more optimistic than it might be now, but it could easily be current.

The flow itself… that’s harder to believe is current. As they specify, Tribe is smooth like butter. That’s a bit strange in the context of current hip-hop, as it leads to rhymes which follow certain rhythmic phrasings, like Shakespeare with iambic pentameter. As hip-hop has evolved, so too has the rhythm of the flows, and this definitely feels its age in that regard. When the aforementioned Busta Rhymes comes in on the final track, “Scenario,” this is illustrated more starkly. He is not yet as honed in his craft as he is by the time his solo albums start coming out, but he is still a bit of a wild man. By comparison, Tribe is “so low key that you probably missed it” ["Jazz (We've Got)"]. It’s not a bad quality, as we discussed above… it’s sort of charming to have the group rap in this way, and it rarely feels forced, just a bit old fashioned. On the other hand, there’s “What?” which is a litany of inane questions, the sort of pseudo-intellectual nonsense which sometimes makes old school hip-hop feel like a novelty instead of serious art. Overall, though, it’s the grooves themselves that keep the album interesting and different. In the age of minimalist trap beats, that’s one place where being a bit old-fashioned really goes a long way.

Comments are closed.