What do we think of "The Low End Theory" by A Tribe Called Quest?

Some dope b sides before and after "low end.." like "if the papes come", "scenario" remix and "hot sex" too.

my favorite song is, like, "vibes and stuff," and stuff

I guess I always thought that the consensus is that Low End is the undeniable classic and I was a pariah for thinking Mauraders is better but apparently I'm not.

Dj Premier, Evil Dee, Pete Rock, The Roots, Madlib, virtually all NYC rap for four or five years, west coast and east coast underground hip-hop for a half decade. I'm not saying that it isn't currently passe, or that it wasn't a bit limited as an aesthetic guiding light, but the idea has sprouted a lot of great hip-hop.

I'm hesitant to respond because I half-way think that you're joking. But even if you are joking, it's a point worth repeating in full I guess.

I never liked "what?" off "low end theory". Hate that song.

Nothing like chilling with a few brews and listening to that date rape song. It really is the perfect moment. Well, next to watching a drunk guy air guitar "What's Your Name Little Girl."

you guys should really check out de la soul. Highly Recommended!!!!

xpost
did that song make the cut in for your hideous rape CDR idea?

Nah, I didn't make the rape CDR. That rape song thread gave me the idea, but I realized that the rapee probably wouldn't like most of those bands (Toad the Wet Sprocket, Sarah McLachlan). I think he's more into the kind of bands that promote rape (Rapeman, the Mentors, Modest Mouse).

^^^Today's most disturbing post?^^^

nude spock or the one about de la soul?

you guys should really check out de la soul. Highly Recommended!!!!

More condescending, plz.

DO YOU KNOW THE IMPORTANCE OF A SKY BRAND PAGER???

One of the first examples of product placement on record. Wonder how much they got paid for that shit.

NOO-OH

xpost AH!

the third post on the thread that deej was biting was more condescending, actually.

this was my favorite rap album when I was 15, ten years later it's my 3rd favorite native tongues album but I still like it a lot.

yeah just like al i used to jam to this every day before school but now i havent pulled it out in like 5 years or more - beats rhymes + life gets the only tribe spins nowadays

I don't know, is this the right place to ask: do snap thread mach '07 people just despise anything old, or just detest anybody trying to talk about good old stuff? is it automatically corny to bring up some album from the '80s or 90s that's good? I mean, like most everybody I think, I'm really suspicious of and guarded against nostalgia trips, I avoid writing about too many old records because I hate hearing people say "they don't make 'em like that any more" - but proposing for discussion/praise a not-current/old record isn't at all the same thing as nostalgia, "reminiscing," etc - it's not even really a fine line. On the one side, you've got "that's when stuff was good" - avoid at all costs, clearly! On the other side, you've got "this is from then, and it's good" = how's there anything wrong/corny about that?

xpost this wasn't at ethan but at big hoos, who seems to imply "if you wanna talk about this stuff, you are into the corny shit" as if TCQ didn't have some great MCs/jams

for deej too I guess

yeah just like al i used to jam to this every day before school but now i havent pulled it out in like 5 years or more - beats rhymes + life gets the only tribe spins nowadays

-- and what, Wednesday, August 15, 2007 4:01 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

definitely the one i listen to most. "jam" is my jam.

i was just doing a reckless records remix of ethan's post. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!

i think tribe are great of course, the reason cynicism seems funny is cuz the thread asks this question like 'what do we think,' as if this album just dropped or is some obscurity whose place in the canon hasn't really secured yet.

in addition, anyone who reads rap boards knows this shit has been discussed to death

maybe he just wantd to know what ppl think and doesn't read rap boards all the time like you

I don't know where people are pulling cynicism & whatnot from my post. I love this record and just felt like parroting that line.

there is that (the "done to death" bit) - but I mean, everything's been discussed to death including brand new shit kinda, y'know? I'm asking out of curiosity because my own relationship to old stuff is, as I note, a little thorny - I think it's toxic to at any point say "the era of the good stuff is over," but at the same time, we'd have little qualms saying "there was a lot more good English lit in the late 19th century than there was in the early 20th" (or vice-versa), right? at any rate, s1ocki's right: there's not like any mandate to live & die with any particular genre, so "let's discuss this album" even if it's been done & done again (Loveless thread anybody?) seems sorta not-necessarily-a-crime-against youth, y'know?

so now tribe has a rep as a rap board obscurity???

xps to slocki

I thought HOOS was just quoting that goofy-ass Sky Pager song, but I guess he can clarify whether there was some underlying implication in there. (xpost)

One of the first examples of product placement on record.

No.

look if you dudes want to talk about it feel free, its a great record so there are certainly worse things to rehash, i.e. loveless ;-)

there are some records where its fun when someone plays devil's advocate and is all "no ... actually, i always thought heavy d is an underrated rap legend!" but i can't really envision someone making a good case for LET being a wack album so where do we end up?

with boring discussions like the shit that came out of this project:
http://www.xxlmag.com/online/?p=9391

my bad hoos it was more deej I was asking

Heavy D definitely slept-on super-bad

not as much as Redhead Kingpin & the FBI though

my friend once referred to peoples 'oscillations of hating on tribe called quest' which is my favorite way to describe it

its like the classicists version of boring rolling snap discussions where people are like "no way, 'a bay bay' is so much worse than 'pop lock and drop it'!" except replace w/ "skypager" and "check the rhyme"

no

i actually meant to say on a rap album, but i was being jocular anyway so i decided not to correct myself. obviously, the correct answer is 1812 Overtune by Tchaikovsky

so now tribe has a rep as a rap board obscurity???

-- deej, Wednesday, August 15, 2007 4:15 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

no.

i just think you're being a superior dick.

everytime a thread starts talking about the rap canon I get the Don Cannon drop stuck in my head now. John D. wants to discuss the CANON (canon) deej is sick of arguing bout the CANON (canon) etc.

haha Alex otm

I don't actually want to discuss the canon (CANNON), I want to ignore the existence of the canon (CANNON)

i learned from the best xxp

hay guyz you know whats more interesting than beefing about whether this thread or boring or not?

---------

You were involved with ATCQs Low End Theory...

PETE ROCK: I did "We Got the Jazz."

What did you do on that?

PETE ROCK: The whole beat!

You didn't get credit for it.

PETE ROCK: No. He shouted me out at the end and that was a big discrepancy for me. What happened was, Tip used to come over all the time. One time the "Jazz" beat was already playing in the drum machine. I went to answer the door and left the beat playing. He came downstairs like, "What the fuck is that?" I even had the records I sampled still sitting there on the turntables because I'd just made the beat. [Lucky Thompson's] Cook County Jail. He was like, "You making this for CL?" and I said I was just fucking with it. But he knew what I used and took the same elements, and made it the exact same way. And then at the end of the record he says, "Pete Rock for the beat ya don't stop." I made that shit. That's my shit. I'm taking all my credit back from niggas that stole from me.

^^^I've heard stories like that before. I heard that Large Pro had a lot to do with TROY actually too

Its pretty crazy, apparently all these guys were hanging out and ghost producing for each other ... Q-Tip, Pete Rock, Large Pro, etc

lolz @ "you stole my sample" arguments

i actually meant to say on a rap album

My Adidas, I'm sure there's others

don't forget "8-Ball"

GUYS GUYS

can't we all just get along?

hahaha check the poster's comment:

" Added: February 22, 2006
From: kwe
Oh man...this is when hip hop was good. "

can't we all just get along?

NO, WE NEED TO FUCKING TAKE PEOPLE THE FUCK APART BASED ON 5 WORD PHRASES THEY POSTED ON MESSAGE BOARDS.

Which 5 words?

"B** H*** a** t** s*********"

not as much as Redhead Kingpin & the FBI though

srsly you are the MAN

Which 5 words?

i'm just saying that all the bullshit that goes on on message boards where people take one sentence that someone else says and then use it to deconstruct the fuck out of them to prove to everyone how they have deep rooted psychological issues, are racists, misogynists, hypocrites, have messianic complexes, and have altogether fucked up ways of looking at the world-- well, I just think that these pseudo-academic armchair psychological diagnoses are really lame. And they happen all the fucking time.

And hey, you did it with only 3 words, good for you.

why is nude spock posting on a tribe called quest thread

waht

amazing album.

"back in the days when I was a teenager, before I had status and before I had a pager...."

the pager is integral to his self assessment of his status level.

"never eat a pig cuz a pig is a cop"

dope album

"everybody's rapping like it's a commercial / acting like life is a big commercial"

phife's lines are classic on this

this thread was truly the apex of ringtone butthurt

i thought it was the apex of meaningless conversation

no i'm sure that's one of the Plies/goons convos

goooons

its definitely their best (MM is good but I lose interest towards the end)
-- Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, April 20, 2006 1:58 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Link

i love the last three songs

when Q Tip says that line about "Meredith biggety-Baxter Bunry," Oh shit lookout

welcome back richard wood johnson

:(

http://www.cocaineblunts.com/blunts/?p=4933

"everybody's rapping like it's a commercial / acting like life is a big commercial"

this is beastie boys not phife

anyway classic LP

No.

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Thursday, 20 April 2006 18:36 (3 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

finally sb this guy.

also sb tribe for that homophobic shit. bloody hell!

tribe is homophobic? i got lost

midnight marauders is probably a better rap album, and a better place to start for hip-hop listeners who are unfamiliar with ATCQ's oeuvre... Low End Theory is more jazzy/bop sounding and less commercial appeal "My pops used to say, it reminded him of be-bop"

although "scenario" is straight fire

i don't really buy that tbh, Low End doesn't really have more jazz loops than a ton of other rap records from that era, it's just the one that has the words "FEATURING RON CARTER" in the liner notes and a song called "Jazz," and when you get down to it it's just a straight up rap album and a pretty damn commercial/accessible one

midnight marauders is also full of jazz loops

which a lot of times were also R&B/fusion/dance records as well

luke: check the link I posted a couple days ago

this record is great & very accessible - people have to invent ways for great things to be less than great in order to keep life interesting

and buggin out doesn't get enough love

That linked song is a major bummer. I've never heard a rap song, any kind of song really ENTIRELY dedicated to dissing a hypothetical friend because he's a faggot.

And people were getting offended at MF Doom's "Batty Boyz" lol

that song is so ridic

missed the point of this revive in pursuit of logging my 2c

jesus that song's fucking horrible in every way

“You can call me homophobic but I know it and you know it/ you’re filthy and funny to the utmost, never will I do that/ disrespect my mommy/so run and hide the salami”

whats (somewhat) funny about this is that 'show business' ended up being iconic as a hating-on-the-industry track ... like, reverberated throughout hip hop for ages ... & it was basically inspired by one of the better decisions a record label has probably ever made

one for which they should thank god every damn day

"positive rap" was a good disguise for them commercially speaking

for real. their fanbase is pretty wide, but with a high proportion of people who are real turned off by this kind of crap. They would be seen in a completely different light if that track came out on the album

you guys have pretty well convinced me not to listen to something that could taint my view of possibly my favorite rap album of all time

there is no 'could' about it -- this is the most explicitly homophobic rap song ive ever heard

:(

maggie gallagher's favorite hip-hop track, basically. buju banton's #1 quest track. etc

Didn't Q-Tip fuck Tom Cruise?

waht

If exchanging fluids via the body of Nicole Kidman counts

20 years old today

awesome

back in the days when I was a teenager

phife dawg is gonna earn his red wings tonight.
590nanometers 8 hours ago