Mike Natale:Listened to: MP3
To set-up my listening experience, you should know my band has a gig in 5 days and I’m suffering from sinusitis, so my voice is as good as gone. This meant that last night I had to “mark” my part, or speak out the lyrics ala Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady. But hearing these lyrics being basically rapped over electric piano and rock beats set me up for the hip-hop fusing antics of A Tribe Called Quest, admittedly much better rappers than I can hope to be.
From the first track, Excursions, I don’t know if this album is hip-hop or jazz. In between Q-Tip’s rhymes I keep waiting for Miles Davis to cut in with one of his Bitches Brew-era solos. This first track basically acts as a musical mission statement for the album, and for those of you who can’t pick up on what it is, Q says it right off the bat:
“Back in the days when I was a teenager/Before I had status and before I had a pager/You could find the Abstract listening to hip hop/My pops used to say, it reminded him of be-bop/I said, well daddy don't you know that things go in cycles”
So now I’m intrigued. The first track is exceptional, and I’m convinced this album is a work of genius. It feels like A Tribe Called Quest put on Stan Getz’s Captain Marvel and just started free-styling, and I mean that in the best possible way. Hell, even my grandparents would enjoy this album, I was convinced. Of course, that’s when it went to track two.
The second and third tracks, Buggin’ Out and Rap Promoter respectively, becomes more typical hip-hop, and I found myself a little disappointed. Some of the rhythms they spit are unique, but nothing like the mind-bending opening. I will concede I do like the guitar on Rap Promoter, but they may only be because it reminds me of Voodoo Child (Slight Return) by Hendrix, and the “dangdiggydang” riff towards the end makes “Bawitdaba” so much less original (as if it could be taken down any further in my book.) “Butter” gets a little more fun. The inclusion of the saxophones from Gentle Smiles by Gary Bartz takes what sounds like a more fluid Biggie track, and returns it to that rap-jazz missing link I’d been so enamored by in the first track.
Unfortunately, Verses From The Abstract and Show Business return to the typical hip-hop sound of tracks two and three. This is not to say I dislike it. But having grown up in the 90’s, hip-hop becomes white-noise. Low End Theory could have just been a good hip-hop album to me, but unfortunately I was spoiled by the opening, and am now hungry for more of the brilliant jazz-hip-hop hybrid it showed me.
Of course, as soon as I think this, Vibes And Stuff delivers, if even minorly, with it’s opening solo, organ burst-ins and chiming repetition. The same goes for The Infamous Date Rape, which sounds like a lecture in Sex Ed. set to Herbie Hancock. Check The Rhime begins with an infectious riff, which unfortunately cuts out for more traditional hip-hop fare. The chorus is repetitive, and I have to be honest, much like many of the other typical rap tracks, I was bored. I was spoiled by Excursion. It feel almost as if the group wasn’t confident enough with their idea of mixing in jazz to do it full out, and the album suffers a little due to that. Everything is Fair, while also being that repetitive, typical rap format, except for the base line (which, it should be said, has been amazing this whole album. The bass parts may not be John Entwistle, but I notice them, and that’s every bassist dream, ain’t it?), I still found the track thoroughly enjoyable. I truly wish I could explain why, but for the life of me, I can’t summon words. It’s just…good.
Jazz (We Got) perfects what Excursions, Butter, and Vibes And Stuff set out to start. The love child of jazz and rap presents itself beautifully. The downside: All the names they call out in between the “you don’t stop”s towards the end. The seem to bring to mind the “And the Jay-z song was on”s of Miley Cyrus’ infectiously catchy Party In The U.S.A. Damn you, Tribe Called Quest, look what you started. Jazz (We Got) is a sharp, brilliant track, but it may have inspired Miley. My song, my song, what have ye done?
A few more typical rap tracks are drudged through, and then we get to the true gem, Scenario. Scenario is without a doubt the finest track on this album. It not only bridges the gap between jazz and hip-hop, but between RUN-DMCera rap to N.W.A era (and if you think there’s not a big gap there, you clearly never listened to rap). The rhymes are flawless, the shouted chorus is a true driving force, and one finds themselves unable to prevents themselves from moving to the brilliant beat. Excursion promised you something, and while it may not have paid in full, with tracks like Jazz (We Got) and Scenario, you get pretty damn good.
So, all in all, I absolutely believe The Low End Theory is one of the 500 greatest albums of all time, but not as a great album so much as a great concept. Is it the greatest rap album ever? No. But was Da Vinci the greatest helicopter designer? No chance in hell. What makes them both so massively brilliant is that they thought that way when no one else did, and were a springboard for brilliant innovations in their respective fields (referring to Da Vinci’s aeronautics career). So, I recommend that the curious get themselves a copy of A Tribe Called Quest’s The Low End Theory, especially if you like hip-hop and John Coltrane, and always thought they’d make a cute couple.
-Mike
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Nick Young:
Listened to: MP3
1991 was a year of staggering importance for the flowering hip-hop collective The Native Tongues. For the Tongues and their followers, all participants in what I like to call the love movement, it was a time when optimism was synonymous with bravery. Before “thug ‘em, fuck ‘em, love ‘em, leave em” entered the communal hip-hop consciousness, kindness and charm were considered the highest aspiration for rappers. After artists such as Black Sheep and De La Soul had taken their baby steps in the late 1980’s, the entire Native Tongue collective burst into a sprint in an effort to change the world. Sure, maybe it was a little naïve of them to think they could win over everybody, but from the evidence heard on their records I have no doubts that they genuinely believed in achieving global unity through music.
Their uncompromising positive-minded outlooks are something sorely lacking in today’s scattered hi-hop community (I hesitate in calling it a community at all). With the exception of Black Star’s Mos Def, who’s latest LP The Ecstatic makes as powerful an effort to shepherd the weak through the valley of darkness as anything I’ve ever heard, there isn’t a single rap artist who strives for good-natured, non-discriminatory (Wake up Mr. West! your inconsiderate egomania disqualifies you!) hip-hop poetry. I heard a wise man once say that progressions can’t be made if we’re separate forever. That quote, taken from a phenomenally spirited track called “Verses from the Abstract” that shines within A Tribe Called Quest’s 1991 sophomore masterwork, “The Low End Theory,” belongs to self-proclaimed abstract poet Q-Tip. Remember the name and savor their music. Unless current rappers stop worrying about their ‘cribs’ and figure out exactly where they went wrong, it’s not likely we’ll hear anything close to the bon-a-fide rhymes of “The Low End Theory,” ever again.
To me, “The Low End Theory” will always stand beside Black Sheep’s “A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing” as two of the most mentally fit anti-gangsta rap albums of all time. Phife Dog, Q-Tip’s mad fly partner in rhyme, won me over the moment I heard him rap, “Now here’s a funky introduction of how nice I am / Tell your mother, tell your father, send a telegram,” on “The Low End Theory’s” ninth track, “Check The Rhyme.” Why do I enjoy this so much? I love the simplicity. I love the innocence. These guys are so nice that they feel the need to explain why they use profanity (which they very rarely do). “Occasionally I curse to get my point across,” we learn from Q-Tip, as though he feels the need to prove to us how gentlemanly a hip-hop artist can be. I respect that. Q-Tip and Phife Dog lead by example. This is okay when you’re A Tribe Called Quest. It’s not okay if you’re 50 Cent.
I think I can sum up the album’s appeal by pointing out Quest’s religious commitment to their work. These guys are devout rappers who sound like they’re having fun, but on expose tracks such as “Show Business” you find out that they possess an inner integrity that refuses to be violated. This is supported by yet another strong lyric from “Verses from the Abstract:”
“Once I had a fetish, fetish for some booty
Now I’m getting’ funky and rappin’, that’s my duty.”
He’s not kidding. These jazz-fueled artists mean business when they proclaim, “party animal I was, but now I chill at home. All I do is write rhymes, eat, drink, shit and bone.”* The simple bear necessities of life. These guys used to live life in the fast lane, but on “The Low End Theory” the party scene is a thing of the past (case and point: “the party scene is cool, but then again it’s all the same). Now their goal is like a New Year’s resolution put into song: enjoy the simple things and try not to bug out so much. “The world is kinda cold and the rhythm is my blanket,” asserts Q-Tip. He thinks of himself as a musical prophet, and the following verse professes his instruction to all those seeking fulfillment in life: “Wrap yourself up in it. If you love it, you’ll thank it.”
*Rapped by Phife Dog.
-Nick
So, thanks for reading, and check back tomorrow for #176: Rocks by Aerosmith.
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