Damn, you remember how it was in the beginning? How I didn't know how to review hip hop albums? How I wasn't familiar with the sound, and thus struggled to describe it, or process it? I remember all too well. It's a little embarrassing, to read basically any rap album review I've ever written, but especially those from over five years ago. Interesting to track the progress of my overall impression of the genre, see the pendulum swing from one end of the spectrum to the other. I went from lightly dismissing through ignorance, to being largely intimidated due to maybe exalting the genre too much, considering it untouchable in a way, and conversely considering myself not worthy, because the craft is just too good, like a deity or something. Whereas really the truth is somewhere in the middle.
This is my running theory, here toward the end of our week with A Tribe Called Quest, as to why I'm sincerely struggling with crafting a true and honest and thorough opinion piece about Midnight Marauders. I'm still struggling with hip hop albums, but it's not for the same reason it once was. It used to be that I couldn't get it right because I didn't know. Now it's that I know I can't get it right because it's just too large of a piece of art to adequately address. How to possibly address all the ways that Midnight Marauders succeeds? I can't do it. Too intimidating. I'm not worthy.
Back in a very early hip hop album review, I attempted to break it down into two parts—production and lyricism—that can then be arranged in a four-quadrant chart, with the best hip hop albums being successful with both the production (the music) and the lyrics (the vocals). It was helpful, at the time, because that provided a way to avoid saying "this is not a good album" when there were very obviously some parts of the album that were good (and, like, who the fuck am I to judge, etc., etc.). But that shit doesn't really work as music criticism when the album so obviously excels in both lyrics and production.
It's too pure, the album. Which is a good way of saying that it's a great album, but also another way of saying that it's just tough to find something new to say about it, that's all. I like how the production seems to have evolved a little bit from the all-timer critically acclaimed The Low End Theory, which is revolutionary for doing the "jazz samples" thing, whereas Midnight Marauders feels more upbeat, a little funkier, there's more pop to the production. I know Q-Tip put a lot of effort into making the drums feel alive, and I can appreciate that on an unconscious level. And I like how the lyrics always seem to be "about" something—i.e. it's not just straight-up braggadocio—without falling into the trappings of hip hop's previous era ("old-school era"), which sometimes feel a little lame to me. The words here are abrasive but light on their feet. There's a purpose to the stories that are weaved throughout the bars, beyond "we are A Tribe Called Quest and we're here to say..."
When I hear Midnight Marauders, I think of it as an archetype. I know that it is an evolution of what came before it just as much as it is a blueprint for all that reverberated after it, but to me, Midnight Marauders is the perfect balance of everything a hip hop album could, and should, be. Every song feels catchy in its own way, every bar spat lands a good punch without being too out-there or kooky or else banal or cliché, every tune pulls from the same palette but does something new with the colors provided. The album feels like it means something, like it has legacy, but also feels like three friends just fucking around in Phife Dawg's grandmom's basement (true story).
I'm talking mostly about how I view the legacy of this album and this artist. I'm saying that there is a tendency to overpraise when the legacy is this strong, and the album is good enough to create that legacy in the first place. Midnight Marauders is not a perfect album. I get what the automated voice / "tour guide" is supposed to be doing, but it never really adds to the music, and probably hasn't aged well in our current climate of immense fear for the AI takeover (if you use AI chats in your daily life, STOP!!!). That same automated voice says something at some point about "the optimal BPM is 95" (not a direct quote), and that plays out in the album, to its slight detriment. I think A Tribe Called Quest would have benefitted from playing around with tempos a little more. It's exciting that everything works so well, but there are no in-the-moment excitements to be found, nothing that quickens the heartbeat.
These are personal preferences, which is good for a personal album review but not good in making me seem "informed." That's the humility piece again, how I feel like I'm not worthy. It sounds so fucking stupid to be like "hey, wouldn't this all-time great hip-hop group have sounded a little better if they just listened to ME?!?!" I'm intimidated to say it. And I don't want to say it anyway. I don't like it. I like thinking about some art as untouchable. That makes me feel good. It makes me feel good to play into the legacy, to appreciate the story, to bask in the universal critical acclaim. There doesn't need to be hot takes about everything. Sometimes it's just cool to all agree on something. If you like hip hop, then you like Midnight Marauders, because this is one of the purest forms of hip hop that has ever existed. Let's all hold hands and make a pact that this is true and forever will remain true.
I know it sounds corny, but I really do appreciate rap music more when it's a group of people collaborating on that rap. I don't know why this is something that has stuck with me throughout my own personal journey with this genre, but I keep coming back to it, because it makes me feel good. A Tribe Called Quest were a group of four people, but they also seemed like friends, right? I already mentioned the fact that this album was made in Phife Dawg's grandmom's basement, and that was the case because she gave Q-Tip the keys. I also saw that Jarobi White didn't provide any music or lyrics or rapping to this album, but that he was still hanging out in that basement all the time. That's why they keep mentioning him on the album, because he was constantly around, just cracking jokes and chilling with his friends.
It's not just A Tribe Called Quest about whom I've discussed this idea before, the idea that these were musicians but also friends. Wu-Tang Clan comes to mind as the group comparable to Tribe in terms of their interpersonal relationships occasionally being even more important than their acclaimed craft. You think about duos like Run the Jewels, who seem like best friends, and you think about how sad it was to understand that OutKast were not best friends and eventually broke up because of it. I think it's so impactful to me, emotionally, because so much of this music genre's themes revolve around being tough and being invulnerable and keeping that ironic distance, and so it's a great comfort to me when that distance is broken down by the reality of the situation, by the fact that these are human beings creating this sometimes superhuman art, and that they depend on each other just like we would throughout our daily lives.
Like I said, I know that's corny, and is probably farther away from the stated themes of the album than is appropriate for an album review. But it's the way that I connect. I like this album a lot for what it is and is intended to be, but I feel disconnected slightly in that way because it's just such an important album from such a well-known artist. The legacy looms too large for me to grasp it whole. I instead break it down to more manageable pieces. Thinking about how this album was made by a group of best friends is a good way to do it.
But I'm still in the early stages of my hip hop journey, let's see what the future holds for us here in Record Club.
GRADE: 4 pukes out of 5
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