“We hope that you will find our presentation precise, bass-heavy, and just right.” With those words, relayed by a woozily-sampled female voice, A Tribe Called Quest declared its own description of Midnight Marauders (Jive), the third album from the Queens, N.Y. trio—Q-Tip, Phife and Jarobi. That was 20 years ago and the passage of time has proved the sentiment apt: The 14 songs that make up the project still charm with a warming comfort and endearing ease. Whereas Tribe’s prior outing, The Low End Theory (Jive), dwelled in deep and dusty jazz loops, Midnight Marauders profited from a more sophisticated luster, with even its duskier moments like “8 Million Stories” and “Midnight” soothed by the luxuriant vibe of later outings like “Electric Relaxation” and the ethereal “Lyrics To Go.” To this bed of production, Q-Tip and Phife reeled off their rhymes with an effortless execution and checked their egos outside the studio door as they often interwove verses. It was the sound of two rappers in creative harmony.

Midnight Marauders’ seamless vibe benefitted from a list of guest features that were kept svelte and intimate, with only the group’s artistic family invited to imprint their stamp on the album’s grooves: De La Soul’s Plug Two hosted hook duties on “Award Tour,” Busta Rhymes amped up “Oh My God” and Large Professor notched a producer and guest verse double feature on the lush “Keep It Rollin’.” This idea of unison brimmed over to the album’s cover, where what seemed like a who’s who of the hip-hop nation posed and good-naturedly mugged it up for the camera. (Phife even added a coy thank you during his verse on the closing song, “God Lives Through,” as he rapped, “‘Nuff respect to all my peeps that made the album cover.”)

Upon its release, Midnight Marauders was lauded as the continued excellence of Tribe. It wasn’t an album to cause dramatic seismic waves throughout hip-hop—Tip, Phife and Ali (and sometimes Jarobi) left that role to RZA and the Wu-Tang Clan, whose debut album shared the November 9 release date. Instead, it was a project to become utterly smitten with. It’s naturally hailed as a key contribution from the tail-end of hip-hop’s golden era, but its influence has also endured: Generation Now artists Logic and J. Cole have paid respects to the album recently, with the former rapper releasing the homage “Common Logic/Midnight Marauder” and the Roc Nation poster boy using the same Ronnie Foster “Mystic Brew” sample from “Electric Relaxation” for his team-up with Kendrick Lamar, “Forbidden Fruit.”

Talking to 15 artists today about the influence of Midnight Marauders, the album’s irresistible appeal is apparent, with many of them closing out their words of praise by saying they felt moved to go and listen to the record again—not now, but right now.

Name: Don Cannon

Age: 33

Hometown: Philadelphia

Favorite Midnight Marauders Song: “Lyrics to Go”

That’s my third favorite album in the world. It’s hard to pick one [favorite song]. But if I had to pick one, it’s “Lyrics to Go.” I remember when I was maybe ’bout 10 or 11, my mom used to run around the house and play “Come Inside Me”—Minnie Riperton. She played that song so much on Saturday when it was clean-up time that it became a great song to me. And that part where she’s singing for like, 30 seconds, the high note, it gave me chills.

When I turned 11, I finally got [Midnight Marauders] from Sam Goody, I was listening and thought, “Wow! He actually used that sound and made a beat from it!” I was already making beats and rapping. It just threw me. My cousin and I, to this day, still talk about it. We’d play that song from 11 in the morning to night, whether we were playing video games or G.I. Joe men or basketball, that song was ’round the clock. All the way into high school we’d listen to it, because I remembered that sample from my mom.

Me and Pharrell talked about that album before. It changed us as people. I think that’s one of the reasons I like Kendrick Lamar and those guys—they bring me back to those albums back then, ATCQ, Pete Rock, Outkast. Those albums had those ingredients—the sequencing, the snippets, the interludes, everything went together. I listened to Midnight Marauders last month.

Name: Curren$y

Age: 32

Hometown: New Orleans

Favorite Midnight Marauders Song: “Electric Relaxation”

I’m such a fan of that album. I love the artwork and everything they did to support their videos at the time, they’re still around. They still play ATCQ’s videos from that album and you can’t even ask a rapper for their Top 5 videos, without one of those videos in it. With that being said, this far down the line, for us to even talk about Midnight Marauders right now, shows its impact. There’s shoes dedicated to the album, too, the [Air Jordan I Retro High Strap.]

It’d be corny to say my favorite song is “Electric Relaxation,” because it’s been everywhere—I like ”Award Tour”—but ”Electric Relaxation is the one. I heard the song originally through my homie’s older brother. I’ve never been able to take it out of my rotation. It’s probably in one or two of my cars, I make sure that’s in rotation. That’s not to take anything from the album. “Award Tour” is super dope, too, though. It’s the video for “Electric Relaxation,” and Phife’s verse was so dope, but the video was cool too because I like the girls in it, and obviously Q-Tip in it. I remember at the time, all the girls were looking the same, but when I saw that video, I was like, “That’s tight.” It was just different. You can’t get away from this album. The songs are everywhere, the poster is a legitimate piece of wall art.

Name: Buckshot

Age: 43

Hometown: Brooklyn, N.Y.

Favorite Midnight Marauders Song: “Oh My God”

It was a real dark album but at the same time it gave you a melodic feel. You had songs like [raps,] “Hey sucka nigga, whoever you are/Hey sucka nigga, whoever you are.” That was real melodic and jazzy and something about that really did something to me, just like ”Electric Relaxation” really did something to me as an artist. And you have “Oh My God”! That song was like a game changer. That’s my favorite song on the album. I know that might be shocking to a lot of people but I just like the sound and the feel of it, and the fact that Busta’s killing it and bringing the hypeness to the song.

Evil Dee actually put me on to the Tribe cover shoot. I remember getting the call to be a part. I was doing something with Spike [Lee] at the time and I remember being in shock ’cause that was the first time I’d had the acknowledgement that [Black Moon] were going to be part of something historical. The cover was incredible. Who else in hip-hop history ever did something like that? They got everybody: Chi-Ali, Pharoahe Monch, MC Serch, Kool Moe Dee. One thing they told everybody at the shoot was everyone has to have some sort of characteristic and personality for the photo—find something that’s in your character and give us a strange face that’s also a reflection of your vibe. That’s why when you look at the album cover everyone has this weird look on their face. I remember when the album came out and I saw the picture of my face they chose and I laughed. They definitely had me looking crazy on there. I’m about to go and check that album right now.

Name: Iamsu!

Age: 23

Hometown: Richmond, Calif.

Favorite Midnight Marauders Song: “Electric Relaxation”

I first came across Midnight Marauders when I was at youth radio and I was learning to make beats at the time. [The instructors] were showing me all different types of music and they played this song Will.i.am produced—it was Too $hort’s “Keep Bouncin’”—and he had sampled this voice from the interlude on Midnight Marauders saying ”keep bouncin’.” That made me want to go and find out what it was and listen to the album. Midnight Marauders was hard for me to digest at first ’cause I was only 15 when I heard it; it was hard to understand the rhythms and where they were coming from, but it definitely ended up influencing the way I make music. I’m actually thinking about having my next album narrated like Midnight Marauders with that voice between the songs.

Tribe just had a chill vibe, it was so effortless. I’m a big fan of Q-Tip on the production end so their music was always relatable to me. It’s so jazzy, there’s a lot of jazz influence in there, but as a rapper he’s got that thing where he’s straight-to-the-point, grass-roots, snap-your-fingers barefoot rap. I liked that—like a new-age hippie era of music. It’s kinda like it is now. Phife is cool, too. I think him and Q-Tip played off each other well. It can be hard to play off another rapper, and the way they went back and forth was so impressive, ’cause you really need to know someone to rhyme that tight with them.

Name: Pharoahe Monch

Age: 46

Hometown: Queens, N.Y.

Favorite Midnight Marauders Song: “Midnight”

Tribe influenced everyone who listened to this album musically. Q-Tip would always blow me away with his word selection and vocabulary. He personified the art of captivating the listener with just one word in a verse—it would be something no one had used before and was so essential to the song and rhyme pattern. For my favorite song I want to say “Electric Relaxation” but “Midnight” captured Queens so much for me being from Southside Jamaica. Queens has a way of being still and quiet and almost suspended in time; that stillness often gets mistaken for a calmness in a good way but people from Queens understand the darkness that is this calm I speak of. It’s actually kind of scary, sort of like danger is lurking. It’s the calmness before something really tragic happens and for me Tribe captured the essence of that on “Midnight.”

Name: Phonte

Age: 34

Hometown: Greensboro, N.C.

Favorite Midnight Marauders Song: “Electric Relaxation”

The first time I heard Midnight Marauders I was on the bus on my way to a wrestling match. I was in ninth grade in high school. I had the tape and for some reason I just put it in and the introduction came on—[Mimics female announcer voice] “Hello, this is your Midnight Marauder program…”—and I was like, What is this shit? It’s crazy! I let it play and I remember turning the tape over and hearing “Electric Relaxation” and, man, it was over. I don’t even remember if we won the wrestling match that day.

I didn’t care. I just remember thinking I was ready to get back on the bus and ride home so I could listen to the Tribe tape. With “Electric Relaxation,” it was those chords and that instrumentation; it was such a beautiful and lush song but it still knocked. That was the blueprint for so many other careers. That pretty much was the template for so many people like Slum Village to my own early stuff with Little Brother. It was all about us trying to make ”Electric Relaxation”! We wanted to make something so beautiful that knocked as well.

I think I kinda related with Q-Tip a little bit more than Phife ’cause when I was young my voice was kinda nasally and a bit like Q-Tip’s so I sided with him more. Plus Q-Tip made beats and I used to try and make beats when I was younger. But Phife was dope as well, you know, they definitely had a chemistry that was incredible. They played off each other well and they balanced each other out.

Name: Logic

Age: 23

Hometown: Gaithersburg, Md.

Favorite Midnight Marauders Song: “8 Million Stories”

I first heard Midnight Marauders when I was 16 years old. Like I heard it as a little kid, but I got super into Tribe when I was 20 years old. It was then that I really started to understand just how great they were and what they meant to hip-hop. I mean, Q-Tip was the artist that inspired Kanye West; before he made The College Dropout he wanted to be Q-Tip. And Midnight Marauders just sounds so timeless. If you listen to something from the golden era like Big Daddy Kane, those are amazing albums but they are very of that era in the way they sound. But Midnight Marauders is recorded so crisp and clean and still sounds like that to this day. It was a game-changer, just like IIlmatic, Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) and Reasonable Doubt. It changed it all.

My favorite song on the album is “8 Million Stories.” I love Q-Tip and I usually gravitate towards what he says, but that song’s kinda just Phife, but there’s just something about it that really appeals to me. It’s a pretty dark song, too, but that’s the one that comes to mind when I think about Midnight Marauders.

Name: Chuck Inglish

Age: 29

Hometown: Mount Clemens, Mich.

Favorite Midnight Marauders Song: “Electric Relaxation”

When I think of Midnight Marauders, I think about the cover first. It was trippy and when I was little I had to do more looking than touching with records and I was like eight or nine when that record came out. When I heard it later, I remember realizing that the breaks that were being sampled were crazy, plus the styles and the flows and the cheekiness of the intentions of the lyrics was kinda funny, but told in a real cool-ass way. I really liked Q-Tip but Phife was fresh! In the videos, I remember just seeing him having wearing the hat and the sports gear and just looking like somebody you knew. They had that on lock—rap that looked like someone you knew. Tribe looked like the dudes you saw all the time.

Together, the three members were like a holy trinity. Phife might not have as many individual hits like Q-Tip does, but as a member of the group he was not overlooked. Q-Tip might have gone on into the 2000s and had more solo hits, but as a group they all worked as equals when they made Midnight Marauders. You can hear that coming across in the record. For my favorite song, it’s hard to pick between “Electric Relaxation,” “Award Tour,” and “Sucka Nigga.” It’s hard, man, but I think I’m going to go for “Electric Relaxation” but I might not really mean it. That song is just all Tribe.

Photo by Benny Mistak

Name: RJD2

Age: 37

Hometown: Eugene, Ore.

Favorite Midnight Marauders Song: “Lyrics To Go”

I had the record on single vinyl, and I had all of the singles off of the record as well. I’d say that in high school it was one of those records that you heard everywhere: On the radio, at parties, in the car, at school. I think it’s one of the most universal rap albums. There were kids in high school that were into punk rock or metal but this record permeated all those social subcultures. At the time that it came out it just felt like a great record that I already loved—like it wasn’t a dramatic departure but it was a solid move forward for the group. For me, a lot of the mid-’90s was about debating which was the best Tribe record, The Low End Theory or Midnight Marauders. I remember having that conversation a lot. For me, I always liked Midnight Marauders as I thought it was a better record. There are one or two songs on The Low End Theory that, I’m not saying they’re bad songs, but they’re a little weird—like the song “What?” But Midnight Marauders felt like it had a little bit more of a gloss to it.

Like a lot of people I really like ”Electric Relaxation” from that album, but “Lyrics To Go” is one that now has become a personal favorite of mine ’cause I can appreciate the origin of the sample and Minnie Riperton’s catalogue. That particular loop, it’s such a brilliant sample. It’s from a weird place in the song—it kinda happens in the breakdown after one of the choruses—and it’s not in any way obvious. As a guy who spent a lot of time digging for samples and picking out loops, I don’t think it’s a very obvious loop to take and it’s just such a genius chord change. It’s gorgeous.

Name: Problem

Age: 28

Hometown: Compton, Calif.

Favorite Midnight Marauders Song: “Award Tour”

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For my introduction to A Tribe Called Quest, I remember my auntie was playing “I Left My Wallet In El Segundo.” We were living in Compton and El Segundo was a street we lived near by and we always thought they were talking about being here! But my auntie was into the whole Native Tongues thing with Jungle Brothers and Queen Latifah so I heard a lot of it coming up, and then I got a real good listen to Midnight Marauders when I got older. When I think of the album, the “Award Tour” record is just big, you know? Q-Tip’s voice was always something I liked—it was high-pitched and it can be borderline annoying but also smooth, you know? My voice sometimes has that nasally thing, too. But the different styles of music he created were so good. Him and Phife was just two different contrasts of style and that’s always dope—it means you’re not taking from someone else but you’re adding to it. Midnight Marauders definitely helped influence the way I write, just with the freeness of it and the vibe of the way they are rapping.

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Name: Jean Grae

Age: 36

Hometown: Cape Town, South Africa

Favorite Midnight Marauders Song: “Electric Relaxation”

[The album] was, of course, the shit that you get and everyone is at school blasting it the next day and discussing it and it was mind blowing. I had already started writing stuff and thought, “Man, if only I was fucking cool enough to be on the cover. I want to be on the cover of this.” I honestly think that it’s the only time I can remember being like, “I want to be a rapper.” By the way, Opio is the best on the cover. That’s not up for debate. It’s just a fact. The album is perfect. It’s a perfect album—not perfect for rap, perfect for an album. Everything about it: The voice guide, the rollercoaster of emotions and tones, the sequencing, the chemistry and balance between Tip and Phife, the guests, the beats, the mixing. Oh, that was a huge deal for me, the mixing. Bob Power [who mixed most of the record] is one of the best people on the planet. Not that I hadn’t heard Bob Power’s work before this but the beauty of what he did on this album is just insane. Bob on this album made me want to learn how to be an engineer, so I kinda left school, got my GED and went directly to Sam Ash Music Institute specifically because of this.

I have to go with ”Electric Relaxation” [for my favorite track]. It changed everything. First off, how do you come from “Bonita Applebum,” the pinnacle of rap love songs, and then come up with this shit?! These guys are assholes, lol. It was almost impossible to top that. Then to come with such a New York video—shot in the Village—it was so relatable. I wanted to write great rap love songs in my own way but that made you feel that way.

“Classic” is a term that’s thrown about so easily now. Without discussing my disdain for that issue, this album is more than a classic. It’s brilliant technique on every level; it’s genius on every level and was able to address even social issues in a way that didn’t sound preachy or condescending. It’s one of the greatest albums of all time—not just of hip-hop. It brings back the feelings, the climate and essence, for me, of exactly what New York City felt like while simultaneously remaining timeless. I’m actually going to revisit it today. Happy birthday, Midnight Marauders. Of course I’ll listen to it at night.

Name: Black Milk

Age: 30

Hometown: Detroit

Favorite Midnight Marauders Song: “Oh My God” or “Electric Relaxation”

The one that, for whatever reason, stuck with me for a while is “Oh My God,” just because of the way Tribe cuts the Busta Rhymes sample over it. I also love how it starts with the horns and then goes into the funky little bass line. It‘s between that record and “Electric Relaxation.”

I probably discovered Tribe in elementary school. I can’t remember if [Midnight Marauders] really got heavy rotation on the radio back then, but it was definitely on MTV and BET. Plus, my older cousins used to always play Tribe. They’d bust a rhyme here and there, made beats. That’s where I got a lot of my musical influences and knowledge in the beginning, from being around them all the time.

With a lot of those records, they were making a collage with all of these different samples on one beat. That was pretty crazy for that time. I mean, it’s crazy now. You don’t hear that style of production anymore, even in the underground, where five or six different samples, sounds from five or six random records, albums from five or six different eras—’50s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, ’90s—make up this one collage, and on one beat. How do you have an ear to just pick a sample from here, and pick a sample from there in the same key, and put it over a beat, and make it make sense? That was one of the things that really set that album apart from a lot of other hip-hop albums. Being a producer myself, I understand how difficult or time-consuming that could be to sit there and do that. You really have to have: a) a big record collection or b) a super ear.

Name: Oddisee

Age: 26

Hometown: Largo, Md.

Favorite Midnight Marauders Song: “Electric Relaxation”

“Electric Relaxation” was the first track that got me to love hip-hop. It‘s the first record that I bought in three formats, on tape, CD and on iTunes. It‘s also the first record I lost and re-purchased several times. That was the first record I found myself in and made me want to be an MC, while setting the tone for my own production and topics that I rapped about.  It‘s my favorite hip-hop record of all-time.

I remember buying it on tape and going to visit my cousin at his house in Langley Park, MD, and when I got to his house, I was like, “Yo, I got this new Tribe album,” and he was like, “I got it too!” We then called our other cousin, and he was like, “I got it too!” We proceeded to all play the song at the same time.  We ended up competing to see who could first memorize the lyrics to the song while also knowing exactly what the hook was saying. I ended up winning.

Name: Hiatus Kaiyote (Perrin Moss and Paul Bender)

Age: 27 and 29

Hometown: Melbourne, Australia

Favorite Midnight Marauders Song: “Electric Relaxation” and “Award Tour”

Perrin: I think my brother was listening to a lot of that stuff at the time, but A Tribe Called Quest, as a whole, was one of the biggest inspirations for me in just getting into music and what I really liked about music, especially hip-hop and stuff. And Q-Tip has always been my favorite rappers, he‘s always been one of my biggest inspirations. I was actually emceeing for a tiny bit and I was inspired by him. I love all their albums equally as much, [but] "Electric Relaxation" is one of our favorite tracks as a band as well. We‘ve covered it before in Melbourne. And “Award Tour” is one of my favorite songs. Just the beat-making on that record and all the Tribe records is a massive inspiration to the way I play drums, especially, just the feel and just that era is still probably my favorite era of hip-hop. Yeah, there‘s something really special about it.

Later on, when I got shown J Dilla, I thought, My God, this guy is amazing. He produced like pretty much all of my favorite hip-hop songs. And he did ATCQ. Realizing where the source came from down the line... The beat-making skills of him collaborating with Q-Tip‘s skills was just a dope combination. He‘s just been such an inspiration for my musical production stuff and just the way I play drums. It just kind of forces its way into the way I play. I can thank A Tribe Called Quest for being that inspiration for me to play like that, I guess.

Sample choice is such a big part of it. I guess if you like jazz and you like elements of soul music and stuff and they‘re using those samples... It spreads to a wider audience and you can kind of relate to it, because you may have heard those Rhodes chords on another track.

It‘s a combination of all that production. The beats are incredible and [they have] two amazing MCs. For me, I got into hip-hop a lot later. I listened to a lot of different kinds of music before Tribe. The first music I was into was metal and grunge and stuff, and I somehow got into jazz from that, from hearing John Coltrane and that really fiery stuff that I related to through the catharsis of heavy metal and then getting into jazz and Coltrane and exploring all those sounds. That‘s kind of what led me into hip-hop, that era, and especially ATCQ and those jazz samples and everything. Not just that, but what they‘re saying, the intelligence behind it as well.

Bender: The flows stood out and were ahead of its time as well.

Perrin: I don‘t know, it was amazing for us to have Q-Tip jump on one of our tracks, [“Nakamarra”], because he‘s always represented such good things. He‘s just always been an intelligent dude and full of ideas and an amazing flow and representing positivity. So yeah, I don‘t know. For me, hearing something from that angle and then hearing someone rhyme intelligently like that, it really attracted.

Bender: And you can pump it real loud, or you can listen to it with your parents in your car, driving to wherever and it’s in the background as well. That‘s also what I love about it. That was one of my favorite things about it growing up. When I was producing and stuff, that‘s always what I had in my mind. You have these albums that you can pump up and turn down and they‘re equally as effective. I think ATCQ and Midnight Marauders is one of those classic albums that you can do that with.

Perrin: Yeah, it has so many moods. It’s like really raw, but also refined. It’s aggressive, but intelligent. It‘s fucking sexy as well..

Bender: Yeah, definitely sexy.

Name: Sabi

Age: 25

Hometown: Inglewood, Calif.

Favorite Midnight Marauders Song: “Award Tour”

I‘m going to marry Q-Tip one day. His voice is so pure and crisp and it sat perfectly on the songs. I liked Phife‘s voice too, but Q-Tip‘s tone in particular is still one of my favorites. I‘d love to collaborate with him. [The music] would sound like sex! My new project coming out has a lot of jazz influences, like a combination of hip-hop and jazz, so I think he‘d be down to do something like that.

I think I heard Midnight Marauders for the very first time on a TV show but I wasn‘t aware of the album at the time, you know? It was later when I was like, “Oh, yeah, that‘s A Tribe Called Quest.” That was when I got older. I think that it appealed to me more than because of the way it felt and the way it sounded and the things they were talking about. It was suddenly like, “Oh, yeah, now I understand what Q-Tip is talking about and it‘s crazy dope!” I would say “Award Tour” is my favorite song just because of the way the hook gets stuck in my head.

Name: Salaam Remi

Age: 41

Hometown: New York City

Favorite Midnight Marauders Song: “Oh My God”

I had it on cassette prior to release from industry friends of mine who must have gotten it from their own industry friends. It was so exciting ‘cause Low End Theory prior to that had totally taken over our minds and I don‘t think there was more anticipation for any other album at that time. I‘m not sure if “Award Tour” was already out by the time I heard it, but there‘s was so much anticipation about what beats Tip was going to put in and what beats Ali was going to put in and what the vibe would be. Low End Theory was a bit of an Illmatic in a way: It was an album that was outside the box from everything that happened at the time and it‘s so hard to follow that, and Midnight Marauders did a damn good job of following-up something that most people felt was flawless. When you heard the album, you knew it was a great follow-up just with the way it had depth and the unexpected features like Large Professor on “Keep It Rollin’.”

I remember the first time I heard Midnight Marauders I was a real big fan of “Lyrics To Go,” and with what Tip did to the loop but just in general, it was a really great album. But for a favorite, there was the more radio-ish remix of “Oh My God” and that song hit home for me. I don’t know why, but that song just affected me.

 

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