People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm

Approaching A Tribe Called Quest's seminal debut in 2015 is a loaded venture. The Queens, N.Y. trio (and sometimes "y" quartet, counting Jarobi) is one of the most revered acts in hip-hop—and with good reason. As part of the Afrocentric and innovative Native Tongues collective—which included De La Soul,  Jungle Brothers, Queen Latifah, Black Sheep, and others—they created and refined a template for '90s hip-hop that was street-astute, worldly, and more inspirational than aspirational.

Even without the Native Tongues' legacy, Tribe's heritage is not a light one. There's no stretch in saying that, without A Tribe Called Quest, the biggest rap artists of this year—Drake, Future, and Kendrick Lamar—would not exist as they do. Drake would not be Drake without Kanye West's 808s and Heartbreak; Kanye would not be Kanye without his Tribe influences. Without Tribe, the Dungeon Family—birthplace of Outkast, Goodie Mob, and Future—arguably does not exist. And the improvisational looseness of Kendrick's opus is unthinkable without the innumerable branches of jazz and hip-hop sprouting from Tribe's experimentation, which differed significantly from the cooler jazz-sample leanings of Stetsasonic and Gang Starr. There's no Mos Def, no J. Cole, no Common, no J Dilla, no Digable Planets, no Neptunes, and no Clipse as we know them. Tribe is that important. And this album—the first ever to receive a perfect "5 Mic" rating from The Source magazine—is where it all began.

Arriving a year after De La Soul's 3 Feet High and Rising, People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm showed Q-Tip, Phife Dawg, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, and Jarobi to be whimsical yet grounded in reality. They weren't heady, hermetic, and puzzling like De La; in comparison to 3 Feet High's astounding range and informative sound collages, People's Instinctive Travels was clean and focused. Where De La went wide musically, Tribe went deep; where De La was deep and dense lyrically, Tribe went wide and abstract. That both projects managed to do all they were able to do and remain fun is one of the great wonders of hip-hop's first golden age.

Encountered now, in 2015,  A People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm feels like a palette cleanser. Considered with Kendrick Lamar's layered and angsty self-examination on To Pimp A Butterfly, the blunting and numbing escapist bounce of Future's DS2, and Drake's bombastic and moody mythological affirmations from If You're Reading This It's Too Late, it's an album that's largely focused outside of itself and its creators. There are three added cuts for this reissue—remixes by Pharrell, J. Cole, and CeeLo—that are passable and melodic but unneeded. Tribe's music needs no updating, even when it sticks out like a sore thumb, because that's exactly what it did in 1990.

"I Left My Wallet In El Segundo", with its eight-bar flip of the Chamber Brothers' "Funky" and Wes Anderson-like narrative, is sparse and simple. But it more than stands up, thanks in no small part to Bob Power's remastering, which makes everything sound fuller and crisper and which uses the empty space between the newly clarified sounds to create groove and warmth. On a fresh listen, the reason "Bonita Applebum" (powered largely by a generous  sample of  Ramp's "Daylight") is still considered one the best loved songs hip-hop has ever produced becomes clear—musically it's sunny and spry, capturing blushes of virgin courtship. It's objectifying, but respectful; cocksure but awkward; flattering and freaky: Q-Tip praises his desired's "elaborate eyes," promises to "kiss you where some brothers won't" and offers that, "So far, I hope you like rap songs."

The rhymes here are at once conversational and repressed, the topics concurrently large and small. Diet is tackled on "Ham 'N' Eggs" with Tip and Phife rhyming in tandem, "A tisket, a tasket, what's in mama's basket?/ Some veggie links and some fish that stinks/ Why, just the other day, I went to Grandma's house/ Smelled like she conjured up a mouse. " Sexual fidelity and STD's are dealt with on "Pubic Enemy" via "Old King Cole" who "wore the crown but not the jimmy hat" until one day "the fair maiden in the royal bedroom/ Caught the king scratching." Sex and safe sex were at the forefront of Q-Tip's mind—props (women) are referred to often, and the most important thing about retrieving his wallet from El Segundo seems to be reclaiming his "props' numbers" and condoms, or "jimmy hats."

The group is marked for their social consciousness, but not merely because of their awareness, but their ability to wax simultaneously about politics and art. On "Push It Along", Tip traverses police brutality, community unity, and rap dreams in a few bars, managing to be an approachable advocate for responsibility without seeming didactic: "The pigs are wearing blue/ And in a year or two/  We'll be going up the creek in a great big canoe / What we gonna do? Save me and my brothers?/ Hop inside the bed and pull over the covers?/ Never will we do that and we ain't trying to rule rap/ We just want a slab of the ham, don't you know, black?" The lyrics are 25 years old. But were they released today they'd seem right on time, while being out of place—because all these many years later People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm is more than a nostalgia artifact. It's a worthy listen, not because of what it was, but because of what it is.