It was Dre’s next-level production techniques that inspired Tip and Muhammad. Dre flipped Public Enemy and the Bomb Squad’s barrage of funky noise to fit a West Coast aesthetic making key interludes out of samples of black comedy pioneers like Rudy Rae Moore. Less remembered but equally important is how Dr. The Compton squad’s studio debut is widely known as the greatest gangsta rap album of all time. N.W.A’s Straight Outta Compton helped inspire Tribe. I want you on a couple of songs, but you have to take it serious.’ … I took that into consideration along with the last couple of shows we did for that first album. He was like, ‘Yo, I’m about to start recording this next album. In a 2015 interview with Rolling Stone, Phife remembered, “A couple of months before we started working on Low End, I just happened to run into Q-Tip on the train leaving from Queens going into Manhattan.

That’s why he only made brief appearances on the group’s debut, People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm. But back in 1990, he was still a Jamaica, Queens teenager more interested in having fun and chasing girls than pursuing a rap career. Many of us are still mourning the March 23rd death of Phife Dawg, whose vocal interplay with Q-Tip resulted in some of the most treasured music in hip-hop history. In order to make The Low End Theory, Q-Tip had to pull Phife off the street. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of one of the greatest hip-hop albums, here are 10 things you might not know about The Low End Theory.ġ. and Ron Carter, the latter joining the Theory sessions to add his supple bass notes to tracks like “Excursions” and “Buggin’ Out.” Numerous moments linger in hip-hop’s firmament, whether it’s Q-Tip’s “4,080” rule for record labels oft-sampled lines like Q-Tip’s “wait back it up, wait, easy back it up” or boom-tastic cipher session “Scenario,” which turned Busta Rhymes into a star and inspired years of rah-rah chants from Onyx, Black Moon and more.

They metaphorically drew comparisons between their lyrical gems and jazz players like Lonnie Smith, Grover Washington, Jr. Others – most notably Gang Starr – had explored fusions between jazz and hip-hop, but Q-Tip, Phife Dawg and Ali Shaheed Muhammad evoked a cool bebop ethos that none had achieved before. Released on September 24, 1991, A Tribe Called Quest’s The Low End Theory is the quintessential moment where hip-hop let its jazz muse fly.

Notes on a tribe called quest