Shawn Taylor - A Tribe Called Quest's "People's Instinctive Travels And the Paths of Rhythm" (33 1/3 excerpt) lyrics

... April 17th 1990 9:32PM Trial 1 As a whole, People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm is my favorite hip-hop album to date. Actually, it is almost exactly tied with De La Soul's 3 Feet High and Rising. Both albums present hip-hop in a non-traditional (overly hard and/or politicized) view and they also make you think. The thing that causes People's to slightly edge out 3 Feet is that it seems more rooted in real situations. This isn't to say that the Tribe album is lacking that trademark Native Tongue magical surrealism, but De La takes it kind of far. While I can vibe with that album, I feel sort of like a distant relative looking in through the window at my family reunion where I know everybody, but not close to anyone. I'm down with the D.A.I.S.Y. Age, but it seems that I have to really dig myself in order to become a full-fledged member of De La. Even though I have some of the same clothes and am sporting a similar haircut, some of it is so insider-y that I can't follow the entire album. On the flip side, People's makes me feel as if I am one of the tribe. The album is a dope journey that I am invited to go on. All I have to do is be myself and I can be down. It is so fresh because most hip-hop albums make me feel like I have to dumb myself down to have fun or, sometimes, I feel less Black because my political concerns are different than Krs-ONE or Public Enemy. Tribe—and the rest of the Tongues—are the perfect middle ground between being Black, smart and politically aware and having a good time. People's is the perfect vacation from being an immigrant-son, nerdy Black kid who is smarter than most of his teachers, but is always in in-school suspension. If I had to sum up the album in a word or phrase, it would have to be in motion. The entire joint sounds (and makes me feel) as if I am moving about in some uncharted funky-a** territory. Most hip-hop albums/songs paint pictures, but Tribe creates movies and then casts the listener in key roles. While up there, on Tribe's big screen, we can be immigrants—or else bear witness to their experience; we can go out an party with Tip; roll to El Segundo and lose our wallets; trade rhymes with Phife or just sit back and observe the scene that Tribe lays down. I feel this album in my body, just like I did with Bad Brains, Black Flag, Public Enemy and the Clash. It starts in my belly and spreads outward. I don't know if it is because of the beats, the lyrics or just the vibe that the music creates, but I be on some mad Exorcist sh** when I play the album. Straight up possessed. Nothing else matters, not homework, not my mom, not girls (well, except for Gloria Domingo! That honey is so fine. If she told me that the only way that she'd go out with me was that I would have to stop listening to A Tribe Called Quest…I just might do it. She's a mutt like me, but she is half Puerto Rican and half Asian. I want to ask her to prom, but she hangs out with a crew with sh**ty musical tastes; so, I don't know how compatible we would be); the only thing that matters is the time it takes for me to listen to the album. Been through the album three times already and cannot even imagine getting bored. It sounds so different when listened to with or without headphones. When it is played aloud, there are so many little blips and beats that are missed. This is most definitely a headphone album; I realized this at about track eight, Can I Kick It? Listening to it on the stereo was cool, but Charlie and Rita were upstairs fighting again, so I had to put on my headphones. The change was dope. It's kinda like the difference in waking up while it is still dark outside and waking up in a sunbeam. In the first, you feel that you're awake but you still want to chill in bed because if the sun ain't up, why should you be? But when you wake up and it's sunny out, you may still want to stay in bed, but you see the dust mites floating in the sun's rays, you hear the birds chirping (or those nasty-a** pigeons cooing), and your room is all sharp angles and colors that you seem to notice for the first time. That is the difference between listening to People's on the stereo or on headphones. While some of the songs didn't hit me like many hip-hop songs do—I only really nodded my head for about half the album—every song was banging. Well, the ham and eggs song was on some sh** that I really didn't get. I don't care if they are high in cholesterol; they taste good. I'm really curious about what their second album will sound like. Most people's soph*more album's finds them sounding like doo-doo. There are a rare few (sadly, mostly rock acts) that come off better than their first shot, and I'm hoping that Tribe can be one of those groups. If they are allowed to make a second album, I cannot even imagine what direction they could go in. Maybe they'll pull a Public Enemy. In 1987, PE's Yo! Bum Rush The Show took out all of those s**a crews. Public Enemy No. 1 is still one of the hardest songs ever recorded. I was a soph*more when this dropped and I could not be faded. This album was my theme song. I put it on every morning before I went to school; it gave me the attitude to deal with those people that were messing with me and my friends. The next year, they dropped It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back. PE's second album almost erased the memory of their first one. Rebel Without a Pause? Ill. That song is so damn hard, not gangsta hard, but street, politics hard. Can't nobody fade that song, or, for that matter, can't nobody fade that whole album. Every joint on there is on hit. And I really hope to God that Tribe can do the same thing. Because if A Tribe Called Quest puts out a wack second album, after such an amazing first one, I might just have to give up hip-hop for good. That is, until I hear what De La and PE put out next. This is enough of this. On to phase two of The Trials. TEN April 18th 1990 7:00PM Trial 2 The album starts off kind of freaky. A bunch of bells and gongs and weird swirling noises floated around my headphones. Then this baby started crying. Was Tribe trying to show how sensitive they were by having their album start off like this, or was the baby ‘spose to symbolize the birth of a new movement, era or style? The intro music was on some outer space, haunted house stuff and I could just imagine that baby as that big a** baby from 2010: The Year We Make Contact. Big a** hip-hop, cosmic space baby crying in a new universe. Hell, maybe I'm reaching a bit. This stuff sounded nothing like Description of a Fool. And just as I was getting used to the freaky-space-music, it drops out and a drumbeat kicks in. It felt kinda unfair. I was settling in to a spooky night in my headphones and then I get bounced from spooky-ville back to hip-hop land. Q-Tip is my title/I don't think that it's vital/for me to be your idol/but dig this recital I'm feeling that. It was cool how the first words of the album were all about not jocking the person who said the words, but vibing with the words they say. Even though I'm down with the style of hip-hop where rappers big-up themselves every chance they get, it's real cool to hear someone stand by the power of their words and not have their personalities become more important than what they are saying. KRS-One could learn a few things from Tribe. The Blastmaster is dope, but he talks too much sh** sometimes. We all know that you're fresh, so shut up about it, already! Push it along, push it along, push it along, yeah, push it along This song is kinda De La-esque. It sorta reminds of Tread Water, but without the mystical, talking animals and whatnot. It's a message track—kinda like Star Trek: The Next Generation—where every episode (no matter how corny) always has something to teach you. If you can't pull it/all you have to do is/push it along I'm feelin that, too. Why try and move something that you can't, using your current method? People be throwing all of their energy against some object, knowing that it is pointless. So, instead of doing something that ain't gonna help, change your tactics. That makes sense. It makes even more sense when underscored by funky drums and jangling guitar. I don't know if I would have chosen this song to lead off the album, but the song is ill, nonetheless. After the first cut, the first in a series of interludes/skits invades and messes with the flow of the album. Jarobi performs a roll call of the Tribe members. The background music sounds kinda like a continuation of the underwater/outer space baby beat from the beginning of the album. The music makes me feel like I'm hearing this while sitting in a cave—music trapped in the water that is dripping from stalactites. The problem with the interludes/skits is that they end so abruptly. Just as I'm settling into a groove: YANK! I'm pulled out of it and have to almost immediately acclimate myself to some new rhythms. This is a sonic workout. But it is mad worth it.