Q-Tip, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, Phife Dawg
9 November 1993 | Jive | 51 minutes
IN HISTORY
It’s November 1993, the European Union is taking shape, Steven Spielberg released The Schindler’s List, Adèle Exarchopoulos is born and Anthony Burgess is dead. Bill Clinton is President, Rudy Giuliani is elected mayor of New York and is thinking about placing police officers in every school while the Indian army seals off a town in Kashmir in their everlasting war against locals and other countries.
Apart from the state of the world, it’s the age of divas. Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey and Janet Jackson top the charts, leaving the West Coast in a good position thanks to Dr. Dre’s Nuthin’ But a G Thang, released a year ago.
But the East Coast isn’t sleeping. It’s November 9, 1993, a Thursday, and the world of hip-hop is about to change forever thanks to two albums. On one hand we have Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) by the Wu-Tang Clan and on the other, Midnight Marauders by A Tribe Called Quest. On the very same day.
MC’s Q-Tip and Phife Dawg with their DJ Ali Shaheed Muhammad released two years before their second album, The Low End Theory, considered by many as A Tribe Called Quest’s best album. However, the release of Midnight Marauders delivers an even greater statement : the ability for the trio to top everyone’s expectations with a second masterpiece where jazz, rhymes and drums all come together to create one of the funkiest, smartest and most enjoyable hip-hop album of all time.
PARTY AND PRECEPTS
« Hello, this is your midnight marauder program »
Laurel Dann. This is the voice of the woman greeting you at the beginning of the album. You will hear her voice many times, she’s the narrator. « I am on the front of your cover » she says. Midnight Marauders’ artwork indeed features the same feminine silhouette than The Low End Theory, her body painted with red, black, green and yellow colors, the symbols of Black Power and afrocentrism, a worldview putting Africa back in the center of History (a complex notion that has been both praised and criticized).
But Lauren Dann is only the name of the band’s label A&R, and the model used for the cover was another woman. Because the narrator doesn’t have an identity, it’s an entity, it’s Lady Hip-Hop. At the end of almost every songs, she’ll come in and talk to you about social consciousness and positivity, reminding everyone that “You're not any less of a man, if you don't pull the trigger / You're not necessarily a man, if you do”. And all this time, that’s Hip-Hop herself directly whispering in your ear.
Black Power is a major part A Tribe Called Quest’s identity (that’s why the first song is called after South African activist Steve Biko) but it’s not the only one. If we go back to the artwork, Lady Hip-Hop is shielding numerous faces, and these are the faces of Hip-Hop, East and West : Afrika Bambaataa, The Pharcyde, Busta Rhymes, Dr. Dre and many others. This is Tribe’s way to show Unity within the movement. Because the precepts of the Zulu Nation need to remain sacred : “Peace, unity, love & having fun!” This is Midnight Marauders, a giant party celebrating Black Power.
THE WAY YOU LIVE
“We rap 'bout what we see, meanin' reality. From people bustin' caps, and like Mandela bein' free”
Where Public Enemy were political in their music with social commentaries about drugs, the army, the media and the justice system, A Tribe Called Quest rather talk about the daily life. With Midnights, Electric Relaxation, and 8 Million Stories, Q and Phife are aiming at their peers, aiming at the youth, « we the people » is front and center.
« The night makes the aura, and the Jake can’t hack it / The way the moon dangles in the midnight sky / And the stars dance around, a-yo, I think it’s fly » raps Q-Tip in Midnights. All three members of A Tribe Called Quest grew up in Queens, and these are the streets they wandered.
On Sucka Nigga, daily life and social consciousness intertwines tightly when Q-Tip anatomizes the use of the n-word through generations and social classes. « Upper niggas in the community think it's crummy / But I don't, neither does the youth 'cause we em- / Brace adversity it goes right with the race / And bein' that we use it as a term of endearment ». In four verses, Q-Tip explains how the black bourgeoisie rejects what is now considered as a word of power and a cultural statement. On his side of life, the n-word needs to be claimed by the Black community, and this specific song is one of the first in hip-hop to engrave the word within the culture.
JAZZ & BASS
« What they did was take the bottom in the drums of hip-hop, put the jazz on top. » Terrace Martin
The Low End Theory already was a playground for jazz sampling, but Midnight Marauders goes even further by « throwing in an entirely danceable dose of West Coast beats »¹. On this record, the mixing is even more perfect, the drums are louder and it has a very special sheen to it making every single song the smoothest possible.
If Shaheed was the DJ, most of the time Q-Tip remained behind some of the most brilliant ideas. He came up with the beat for Electric Relaxation, and a song like Award Tour features six samples from songs between 1967 and 1992 ! For instance, the drums come from Sly and the Family Stone’s Advice (1967), the sax from Charles Earland’s Low Down (1973) and the bassline from Jade’s Don’t Walk Away (1992).
Looking at all the samples used in this album is like opening a Bible about jazz. You will meet Jack Wilkins’ Red Clay on Sucka Nigga, Tyrone Washington’s Brother Man on We Can Get Down , Ronnie Foster’s Mystic Brew on Electric Relaxation and so many more. That’s what happened back in 1993, you heard Midnight Marauders, tried to find what the samples were and immediately went to your local record store to buy these albums by Wilkins, Washington and Foster. Midnight Marauders revealed the immense linkage between jazz and hip-hop to hundreds of thousands listeners.
A NATIVE SOUND
At the time, NWA’s Straight Outta Compton shaped the sound of hip-hop for years to come. It was aggressive and heavy. But A Tribe Called Quest took a completely different direction, and that’s mostly due to their affiliation with the Native Tongues. The direct descendants of Afrika Bambaataa’s Zulu Nation gathered De La Soul, the Jungle Brothers, Queen Latifah and later artists such as Common. The release of Jungle Brothers’ Straight Out the Jungle in 1988 opened the gate for a new playful sound flirting with jazz that was embraced by the De La and perfected by the Tribe.
And even more than before, this Native Tongues album is the very first time where every single one of its members, Q-Tip, Phife Dawg and Ali Shaheed Muhammad (fourth member Jarobi was only present part-time) all shine at the top of their game. Because if Q-Tip can be held as the mastermind, it’s impossible not to bow down in front of the genius verses from Phife, especially on 8 Million Stories and Steve Biko, as well as the timeless samples from Shaheed on every song. What would later be called jazz rap found its Holy Trinity, three friends from New York knowing everything about their art in order to deliver a record to spin endlessly.
FOCUS 1 : VISUALS - ELECTRIC RELAXATION
There’s no other way to present it, Electric Relaxation is about sex. Phife Dawg complains when a woman he’s flirting with calls him a « hoe » because of his reputation that preceeds him while Q-Tip raps about how good and dedicated he can be at lovin, etc.
But despite those themes, the music video doesn’t have any objectifying male gaze. It’s all about New York, three friends walking the streets, hanging out in the cold and going to a diner. The daily life. A Tribe Called Quest’s music is never about romanticizing their life, showing them as womanizers, on the contrary, they disappear in the ordinary crowds just to vibe and spread their infectious groove around them.
The only time you can see different women in this video is at the end, where everyone is just vibing to the song. That’s the deeper meaning of Electric Relaxation, how a beat can reach an organic sensuality and spread in your body to relax yourself and release endorphins. This is the feeling A Tribe Called Quest is spreading in every New York street. Indeed, as Lady Hip-Hop said at the end of Award Tour, « The word 'Maraud' means to loot / In this case we maraud for ears ».
FOCUS 2 : LYRICS - STEVE BIKO (STIR IT UP)
“So much going on, people killing, people dying
But I won't dwell on that, I think I'll elevate my mental”
In an interview with Vice, Q-Tip explained that they “named the first song on Midnight Marauders “Steve Biko” because we wanted people to ask who he was? Then they would look him up and find out that he was an amazing freedom fighter in South Africa. He basically gave everything for the liberation of his people. We wanted the fans to find out about his story. There’s no better way to bring attention to something than through music.”
Because as Q-Tip's line highlighted here shows, the song itself isn’t about Steve Biko at all. However, it perfectly summarizes the Tribe’s philosophy.
Preaching through positivity. A Tribe Called Quest are not here to undermine the reality. But they want to catch your attention with groovy beats to enter your mind more easily. Phife’s first line focuses on one rhyme with the words « killing » and « dying ». But the second line erases every « _ing » words in order to escape the trap of having your body and mind crushed by the weight of the world.
« I’ll elevate my mental » ends his short demonstration by telling everyone we should reach an upper level of living in order to stay alive and let the light win. And it’s only when we get our feet out of the mud that we can contemplate the world and act to change it. In a way, Midnight Marauders is the perfect counterpoint to Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation of Millions, it trades political speeches for an endless groove so their ideas take root effortlessly in the mind of every listener.
THEIR LEGACY
From The Roots to Kanye West, Madlib and BadBadNotGood, Midnight Marauders revolutionnized the way DJs and MCs considered production and sampling. Their jazz sound spread over the East Coast to pave the way for incoming masterpieces such as Mos Def’s Black On Both Sides, J Dilla’s Donuts and Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly. The jazz rap scene was born, and it became one of the strongest field for hip-hop experimentations and worldwide consecrations.
Outside music making, Midnight Marauders also was determining for a whole generation. It revealed the name of Steve Biko to thousands and helped people reconnect with the father of hip-hop, Jazz itself.
By meshing together the daily life with political discourses, A Tribe Called Quest managed to become the most popular hip-hop group at the time, becoming a true « pop » phenomenon.