These are the things you should teach. Encourage and refute with full authority. Do not let anyone look down on you.
A Tribe Called Quest – The Low End Theory (1991)
Get yourself some toilet paper cos your lyrics is butt.
There once was a time when I pretended to be really into hip hop. I bought & collected a ton of hip hop albums, & to this day I’m not entirely sure why, because I haven’t listened to way too many of them. My problem with the genre is that I think it has the power to be the single most lasting form of music (& in a sense, in the long history of music to date, it already is), but there’s just so much out there that requires complete concentration & intense study that I became overly bogged down. The other side, of course, is that there’s an immeasurable amount of garbage. Where do you start, then, & once you’ve started, how do you end? What do you avoid & what do you memorize? In short: what’s worth it?
The Low End Theory was my first hip hop album, & I can’t recommend it enough times to anyone who is interested in knowing where to begin. In a sense, it’s also where I ended, however, as time drew on & I jammed handful after handful of hip hop albums into my speakers & onto my shelves. This is one of the few that I am still listening to on a regular, almost day-by-day basis. I think I get a little intimidated by the genre (not because of its content, give me a break), as further investigation unfolds an insane amount of layers into poetics & performance, & the amount of words becomes almost overbearing. At times, this complete bombardment of skill & logistics is arrestingly amazing to experience, & other times you just wonder, “Why are saying this? & why do I care?” There is no way that Low End Theory is any less concentrated or intense than any other hip hop album, but for some reason it stuck with me — & still sticks with me today.
The beats, we all know & don’t care to read about again, are jazz.
The lyrics, yes yes yes we’re all aware, are intelligent.
The flow, duh, is smooth as hell.
From “Excursions” to “Scenario,” the still undisputed greatest hip hop track ever laid down (this is not just my opinion, either. This is music history fact.), the Tribe is incredible. Semi-self-censored, positivity cos we gotta strive for longevity, they make it all look so easy. Like butter.
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Check out Busta’s hat. Psick with a p.s. like psychology.