Above is the unofficial Mt. Rushmore of new school hip hop circa 1993 and if you can name just ten of the rappers above we can be friends. Just the cover art alone could get Midnight Marauders into the Scooter Hall of Fame but the seminal A Tribe Called Quest album is more than worthy on the music as one of the greatest hip-hop album of all time.
The group’s first two albums were great in their own rights, but were still rough around the edges as the group, still teenagers at the time, were still finding themselves. Midnight Marauders is when the group came into their own and grew musically and emotionally. They have always been jazz based, but they took the beats to a new level on the disk with Award Tour, Midnight, and Electric Relaxation still ranking as three of the groups best.
As for the emotional point, here is where A Tribe Called Quest became more socially conscience dedicating a song to apartheid activist with Steve Biko (Stir it Up), called out a Sucka Nigga, and the Tour Guide for the album pointed out the increase of AIDS in the Black and Latino communities and letting you know, “You’re not any less of a man if you don’t pull the trigger; you’re not necessarily a man if you do.” But there are plenty of songs to get your groove on with Award Tour, We Can Get Down, and Oh My God to this day can start any house party.
Yeah the previously mentioned Tour Guide can get a little annoying after multiple listens and it really hurt right around the time Phife Dawg uttered the line, Your styles are incomplete same as Vinny Testaverde” he got traded to the Brown and replaced Bernie Kosar (another brilliant move by Bill Belichicken) as QB prompting the team to be so bad it moved. Even with all that, this outing from Q-Tip, Phife Dawg, and Ali Shaheed Muhammad not only is one of the greatest rap albums of all time but one of the greatest albums across all genres.
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