People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm cover

People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm

Released

A Tribe Called Quest’s debut mined from the 1970s, sampling Lou Reed, Roy Ayers, Weather Report and other artists that 19-year-old rapper-producer Q-Tip wasn’t expected to know. Tip, Phife Dawg, Jarobi and DJ Ali Shaheed Muhammad presented themselves in patterned dashikis with swinging leather medallions of the African continent; they didn’t pretend to murder gangstas, they lusted after “Bonita Applebum” instead. Rap albums throwing in snatches of Jimi Hendrix (“Go Ahead in the Rain”) and The Beatles (“Luck of Lucien”)—as well as the whole concept of black bohemians operating within hypermasculine hip-hop—didn’t exist until Tribe made it so.

Miles Marshall Lewis

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