Album Artist: A Tribe Called Quest
Album Name: The Low End Theory
Release Date: September 24, 1991
Record Label: Jive
Genre: hip-hop, rap, jazz rap
Where To Listen: Apple Music
This is sincerely one of the greatest rap albums I've ever heard, the beats stay solid and the vocals keep up perfectly, the lyrics are very progressive for the time and tend to carry a good message. The tribe carries a sense of pride throughout the album and I think it's because they know just how good the album is, it's also very calming for a hip-hop album, it's great to put on while you're just trying to chill out and jam for a bit. It's charming and self aware and really gets me in a good mood. It's hard for me to pick out any songs in particular to talk about because they're all so good, but if I had to choose I'd go with Butter, Show Business, and Check the Rhime, these songs are quite literally perfect, I don't think there is any way that they could be improved. The beat on Butter is, well, smooth like butter, and the message around the end of the song about being comfortable with yourself is very nice. Show Business has a really good bounce to it and it's super catchy, the criticisms of the show business, while not a very original concept for a song, are very well portrayed, and like usual, the vocals are absolutely on point. And finally, Check the Rhime, the whole instrumental is absolutely iconic, it's probably the best song on the album, no words can truly do it justice, it has the perfect mix of fast and slow paced moments to really get me going while still giving me room to breath, if you only take away one thing from this review, let it be that you NEED to hear this song.