Crate Diggin’: A Tribe Called Quest, Beats, Rhymes & Life

		Get A Hold Download 1nce Again (w/Tammy Lucas) Download Keeping It Moving Download Album: Beats, Rhymes & Life (1996)
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I’ll admit Beats, Rhymes & Life isn’t A Tribe Called Quest’s best album. Of the five original LP’s they released, I’d say it ranks around fourth. So why select this one over Peoples’ Instinctive Travels & the Paths of Rhythm, The Low End Theory, or Midnight Marauders?

Like other entries in the Crate Diggin’ feature, Beats, Rhymes & Life is a slept-on LP. Though none of the tracks is among the upper echelon of the Tribe’s best tracks (e.g. “Youthful Expression” “Check The Rhime,” “Electric Relaxation”, the list goes on and on), there are a few gems on Beats, Rhymes & Life that I still enjoy hearing. Ultimately, A Tribe Called Quest’s lesser tracks are still better than most rappers’ greatest hits.

Sonically, A Tribe Called Quest went in a different direction with Beats, Rhymes & Life, opting for a more laid-back mellow groove than their previous releases. The impetus for this was the inclusion of Detroit producer J Dilla, with whom Tribe members Q-Tip and Ali Shaheed Muhammad formed a producing collective called The Ummah. The Ummah was short-lived but successful, producing hits for Busta Rhymes (“Ill Vibe,” “So Hardcore”), Whitney Houston (“Fine”) and a slew of others during the late 90s. The tracks I selected to showcase are presumably among the beats for which J Dilla was primarily responsible.

“Get A Hold” features Q-Tip bemoaning the inescapable materialism that pervades hip hop. J Dilla pairs Tip’s diatribe to an obscure sample (“The Visit” by The Cyrkle) that results in a deep, haunting track.

“1nce Again” was the first single released, powered by a genius little vibraphone sample from Gary Burton’s “I’m Your Pal.” Though I’ve moved on, I gotta mention that flipping Check The Rhime’s iconic call-and-response (“You on point, Tip?”) was borderline sacrilegious.

My favorite track on Beats, Rhymes & Life is the jangly “Keeping It Moving,” a terrific union of head-nodding groove, verbal dexterity, and social commentary. Lyrically, Q-Tip’s delivers an impassioned diatribe against the pointless mid-90s east coast/west coast hip hop rivalry. I remember the first time I heard the final minute of “Keeping It Moving,” as Tip reels off a list of his favorite hip hop acts from both coasts. Months later, 2Pac would get slaughtered, and Biggie’s murder stunned the community shortly thereafter. You can’t say no one tried to stop it.