Liner Notes | A Tribe Called Quest’s “Check the Rhime”
Artist: A Tribe Called Quest
Song: Check the Rhime
Producers: A Tribe Called Quest
Album: The Low End Theory
Label: Jive Records
Release Date: September 9, 1991
What is the most ridiculous lie or exaggeration that you’ve ever heard come out of a rapper’s mouth?
Kris: from 50 Cent’s “Wanksta”
We ridin' 'round with guns the size of Lil Bow Wow.
Devin: from Rick Ross’s “Hustlin’”
I know Pablo, Noriega.
The real Noriega - he owe me a hundred favors.
What are your favorite bars from “Check the Rhime”?
Kris:
Got the scrawny legs but I move just like Lou Brock.
With speed, I'm agile, plus I'm worth your while.
One hundred percent intelligent black child.
Devin:
It was I, The Abstract,
And me, the Five-Footer,
I kicks the mad style, so step off the frankfurter.
Links/Videos mentioned in this episode:
1991: The Most Important Year in Pop-Music History, article published in The Atlantic
Watch Kris and Devin’s live recording of this episode on YouTube:
FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
Devin Dabney 00:00
Hi I'm Devin Dabney.
Kris Hampton 00:09
I'm Kris Hampton.
Devin Dabney 00:11
And this is how Hip Hop Taught Me Everything.
Kris Hampton 00:19
Okay, first off, if you've not listened to this week's episode, A Tribe Called Quest Taught Me Authenticity, you should go do that. Because it's a Music + Talk podcast, it's only available on Spotify. With Spotify Premium, you're able to listen to the full song, in this case, "Check the Rhime", immediately after the episode. Alright, before we get into the question I prepped you with, another pop question - because I love these. Same rules as always, no explanation. Low End Theory or Midnight Marauders?
Devin Dabney 00:54
Low End Theory.
Kris Hampton 00:55
Oh, dang, we agree on one!
Devin Dabney 00:58
For sure, Low End Theory. That's, that's easy for me. Do you like that album more, too? Is that your choice?
Kris Hampton 01:04
That's my favorite album of all time. Best album ever created, of any genre, period.
Devin Dabney 01:13
It's kind of hard to argue with that, honestly. I mean, it is a fantastic album. But yeah, usually it is split, isn't it?
Kris Hampton 01:20
It is, it is usually split. So alright. Okay, since this week's Lessons episode was about authenticity, what is the most ridiculous lie or exaggeration that you've ever heard come out of a rapper's mouth?
Devin Dabney 01:37
Um, so when you asked me this at first, initially, I was about to put on blast some people that I grew up with rapping but I decided that wasn't very nice, because we all were lying back then, you know? I just, but I just remembered a lot of stuff talking about like, moving like hundreds of bricks and like, you know, like, it's just like these outrageously... so but I thought that was a little too easy. And my actual answer may also be kind of cheating because I feel like Rick Ross is an easy target at this point. But it's really hard to not say the... my favorite of this is: 'I know Pablo, Noriega. The real Noriega, he owe me a hundred favors.' Do I have to explain why this is my favorite? It's just, I think it's the fact that he, he went on to say the real Noriega, like to really hammer it in. And, you know, I just have a hard time believing that he knows Pablo, nor Noriega. So...
Kris Hampton 02:47
Yeah, I'm thinking he does not as well. I do love though, the whole, like, that this generation - and I'm using the term generation loosely - but has really embraced the actor side of rapping instead of being all about 'Let's keep it real,' you know? I do love that. I love these larger-than-life figures they create.
Devin Dabney 03:11
I do, too. And I say all that about Rick Ross, saying also, loving his music. Like I love... actually, I think my favorite album of his is Mastermind, and it is very much, like it is practically like a Greek myth. You know, like just the level of he'll, he'll say stuff like '17. I was charging niggas 17.' And I know a lot of it isn't meant literally, but just like, it's so like, impossible, you know? That just is like I'm in, I'm with it, you know? Like, and I do want to say one honorable mention that I think is on that level. It's on, it's, I can't remember what Jay-Z song it is but I think it's on "Blueprint" where he says "Lost 92 bricks, had to fall back. Knocked a nigga off his feet, but I crawl back." 92 bricks?! 92, Kris! Like that's literally millions of dollars of cocaine lost. I feel like there would be some sort of inquiry...
Kris Hampton 04:17
It fell out of his pocket.
Devin Dabney 04:18
Yeah, yeah. Like from, I feel like the Cocaine Better Business Bureau would not give this man anymore if they, if they heard that he lost 92 bricks! But anyway, I don't know if it's meant to be literal or not. But just that level of exaggeration is just far more than I can, like, deal with.
Kris Hampton 04:38
Yeah, that's, that's a bad business decision.
Devin Dabney 04:42
Who gave Jay-Z coke after this? Like who was like, 'Well, he lost 92 bricks but he's a good dude. You know, I believe in him. So...' Oh, gosh.
Kris Hampton 04:52
Mine is not necessarily the biggest exaggeration I've ever heard, but it's certainly my favorite and that is 50 Cent from the song "Wanksta". He says, 'We ridin' 'round with guns the size of Lil Bow Wow.' This was 2002. Bow Wow was 15. He's probably somewhere around five foot five at that point - that's a big ass gun 50's rolling around with.
Devin Dabney 05:21
He's rolling around with like a Browning M...
Kris Hampton 05:23
Mounted on the roof.
Devin Dabney 05:25
And like, you know, this is why like I hesitated to like, I don't mean to like call out rappers because some of the exaggeration is on purpose like, right? Like it's meant to be ridiculous, but it's - what's that called? A hyperbole, right? Where you're obviously like, over-exaggerating it to be like, 'Yeah, this is a big ass gun.' It just rap is so... it's in that weird space where half of the people still believe they're telling the truth. And so like, but stuff like this makes it obvious that they're just like talking shit.
Kris Hampton 06:05
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And it's one of the great things about hip hop. You know, it - hip hop was born in a culture that was being held down, for all intents and purposes, so showing out is just part of black music, I think.
Devin Dabney 06:24
Yeah, yeah. And just, yeah, I mean, it's, uh, I guess it depends on how you take it, right? And that's why I like that idea of portraying this larger-than-life drug kingpin is like, it's in line with hip hop culture. Because yeah, like, a lot of it is just like showing out and like, maybe perhaps feeling like, you're this larger-than-life figure, and writing from that perspective, but it's just such a gray area, because like, you know, a lot of people still believe that rappers are, like telling the truth.
Kris Hampton 06:59
I know. Using, I mean right now, as we record this, they're lyrics being used in court cases.
Devin Dabney 07:06
Yeah, yeah. That's, that's it. It's like, dude, how do you guys think that these people are telling you the truth? Like, I mean, you can't even really, even if they are telling the truth in their lyrics, you can't... I don't know. You can't really use it. I mean, that's... we could have a whole episode about this but it's just, it's like, they don't want to, they don't want to take us seriously but then when something happens, 'Oh, well, but you said in your song you killed so-and-so. So it must be true.' Just like double standards, like always.
Kris Hampton 07:37
I mean, just imagine the prosecutor in court. Like, 'Well, it says right here, 50 - Mr. Jackson - was riding around with a five foot seven inch weapon.'
Devin Dabney 07:47
Yeah, yeah, exactly. 'I have on the transcript that Rick Ross quote, 'was selling dope straight off the iPhone.'' Which is also, I didn't mention that, but that is another great one. Yeah, just like, I don't know what app he found that allows you to sell dope, but...
Kris Hampton 08:09
There's an app for that.
Devin Dabney 08:09
...that's pretty cool. It's pretty cool. Oh, my God, dude.
Kris Hampton 08:14
Oh, I love it. How old were you in 1991?
Devin Dabney 08:20
Uh, what month? I may have not been born yet.
Kris Hampton 08:24
I think September.
Devin Dabney 08:27
I was three months old, in September of 1991.
Kris Hampton 08:33
Alright, then let me set the scene for you here, because this album came out in 1991. This song was the first single off of it. Earlier that year, we had gotten DJ Quik - "Quik Is The Name", Gang Starr - "Step In The Arena", GZA - "Words From The Genius", "De La Sol Is Dead", Main Source - "Breaking Atoms". And two of maybe the most classic self-titled albums ever: "Cypress Hill" and "Naughty By Nature".
Devin Dabney 09:05
Man. Wow, what a, what a year for hip hop. Maybe that's why I was born.
Kris Hampton 09:10
Incredible year, incredible. However, like I mentioned in this Lessons episode, the radio in Cincinnati was pretty much playing Vanilla Ice, Gerardo, Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, you know. And there was Another Bad Creation in there, which I actually quite liked. Really fun, I can't lie. But then we get "The Low End Theory" which was totally different. It felt like this seismic shift that was akin to when "Straight Outta Compton" first dropped. And actually Q-Tip says that he and Ali would ride around listening to "Straight Outta Compton" and they would talk about, 'We have to make this.' And that's what "The Low End Theory" was. Like, they stepped up their game so much to make this sonic project that just changed everything.
Devin Dabney 10:07
Man, you know, this, this era of hip hop is probably like one of my favorites, if not the favorite. Like the, the afrocentric, like everyone's wearing like the African print clothes and the necklaces, and you know. It's funny that you like... it was cool to hear that Tribe was what taught you authenticity, because I feel like I had a similar experience with De La Sol. Like very much that same like, 'Oh, I can just be who I am. And that's okay.' But I was curious, since you're kind of setting the scene, one of the most memorable things about this song specifically is: I think it's probably the earliest example I can think of where they used a pure bass line. Like, I feel like rap was using, up to that point, was using a lot of like, you know, actual basses. And this is like, I mean, you know what I'm talking about. When that base hits, it's like, so... it sounds amazing. And I'm just wondering, like, maybe I'm forgetting earlier examples of that? Was that like, pretty... how important was that sound at this time?
Kris Hampton 11:16
I mean, it may have happened, I can't say whether it did or didn't happen before that, but certainly, this was the album that kind of hipped me to the idea that you could use upright bass on a, on a rap song. And you know jazz - jazz, period. There was, there was, there was sprinkling of it, but there was not an album that felt like a jazz album. Yeah, this was really the first time that it felt like jazz. You know, Q-Tip feels like a - like he's scatting, you know, like it's a bebop. It's just a whole different thing. And, and they did bring in, not for this song in particular, but they brought in Ron Carter, who was a, you know, a famous jazz session player around New York to play on this album. So they had some live bass, upright bass, happening in the studio while they were recording. And they're definitely trying to capture that feel here. And I think it's interesting you picked up on that, because it's definitely one of the things that hit me first, like, it sounds so different than the than the bass lines we were getting elsewhere.
Devin Dabney 12:33
Yeah, it did. And I mean, even with the upright bass being used, I still think that the, like, the synthesized bass that they use in the chorus, like that hits so heavy. Like that's a, that's actually... I don't know. It just, it's very iconic, like the way that the beat comes in, and then the bass like, totally changes, it feels like it changes the beat entirely. And then they go into the verse and it's like, 'Oh, we're not going to use the synthesized bass anymore. We're going to use the upright bass.' Yeah, just...
Kris Hampton 13:06
Yeah, totally. They do that on this song, and it's a thing I wish happened more often in hip hop, where the hooks and the verse sound kind of drastically different. And the thing that ties them together is the voices of the emcee's, you know. And the feel in general, but the instruments are different; in this case, they're all samples, the samples are radically different; you know, they feel totally different. It's, it's very cool. You know, up until this time, it was like, mostly just loops that would play with a drum break behind it and it didn't change a whole lot throughout songs. This was one of the first times I think it was actually, it actually felt like this musical composition as opposed to just a sample and a drum break.
Devin Dabney 14:02
Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, even to your point like you were telling me just now, how "Straight Outta Compton" inspired them to make this and even that album, like a lot of those beats are loops, you know? Like, yeah, "Straight Outta Compton" the song itself, like "Gangsta Gangsta", "Fuck Tha Police", like those are all loop and I'm not saying that's bad but, but I agree with you - it feels more like songwriting you know, where it's, it's less about the origins of hip hop, which was like looping a drum break and then you know, hyping the crowd up, it's more like, 'Okay, we're gonna make a verse and then a chorus and, and we're going to do that also with the music.'
Kris Hampton 14:43
Yeah, yeah. And we haven't talked a lot about sampling on this show. It can seem, on its surface, really easy. Like you just, you hear somebody play something you like and you just take that and make a new song from it. Like it sounds really easy, and it sounds nefarious or something, like you're, you're just straight up stealing. And sometimes that's the case. You know, it's just, people will just take a straight loop, loop it up, rap over it, it's done. You know, that certainly happens and can be, you know, can be a hit - can be a great song. But what Tribe was doing here is totally different. And I had gone down a rabbit hole, actually a couple of months ago on Bob Power, who was the engineer who recorded and mixed this album and "Midnight Marauders", and he had done work with De La Sol and a couple of other Native Tongue groups as well. And he, he gets shouted out on the album quite a few times throughout this and "Midnight Marauders". And Q-Tip has credited him with like figuring out how to put that amount of low end, you know, under the heavy kicks and snares, and have everything still sound clean, and still work together sonically. And so I went down a rabbit hole and was listening to interviews with him. And I pulled this clip out of him talking about this album:
Bob Power 16:22
"The Low End Theory" was an interesting record because, in a way, it's the "Sergeant Pepper's" of hip hop - it's a record that changed the way people thought about putting music together. Until then, and I'm not a big hip hop historian, I just know the stuff that I've worked on, but until then, if people used samples, it was pretty much one loop that played throughout - they didn't put together a bunch of different samples. It was the beginning of a wave, where people were making really elaborate musical constructions out of samples from different places. And not only could it not have been played by regular players, but it wouldn't have, because the cool thing is that they weren't made to go together in the first place.
Kris Hampton 17:04
I think that's really cool that he mentions like, nobody would have played this the way that it got put together. And in a lot of cases, it couldn't have been played like this, like our fingers just won't play it. I think that's really fascinating and says a lot about the skill of what Q-Tip and Ali we're doing here. It's not clear who produced this beat exactly, because Q-Tip has kind of always looked at it more as the collective, both in this and when he was like in the production company with Dilla and D'Angelo and that crew - it was always just credited as "The Ummah". And this, this whole album was just credited as produced by A Tribe Called Quest, so...
Devin Dabney 17:49
You were talking about how people say sampling is easy, or like it's... yeah, I think that, I think you would have to try to sample something and make it sound good to understand how hard it is. It isn't just, I mean, sometimes it is, but a lot of times like what Kanye does, or what, what Tribe was doing, like it isn't as easy as just finding a song and like, slowing it down. Like you really have to understand how it works. And yeah, like just underlining everything you just played and just said.
Kris Hampton 18:21
Yeah, and this, this song in particular, "Check the Rhime" is, it's not a great example of like, chopping up a bunch of samples, but it does pull from a bunch of different sources and put it all together. There are either seven or eight different samples that create this song. Pretty much every sound you hear in this is from a different song. Three or four different drum pieces are brought in. And then there's kind of three main, most recognizable samples and I pulled up the the original songs that they're from, and then I looped up the pieces that Q-Tip took.
Devin Dabney 19:09
Cool.
Kris Hampton 19:09
So since we haven't really talked about sampling on this show, let's, let's go through these a little bit.
Devin Dabney 19:15
Heck, yeah.
Kris Hampton 19:16
This first one is the main melody of the verses. It's from Minnie Ripperton's "Baby, This Love I Have".
Devin Dabney 19:24
Hmmm, immediately, yeah...
recording 19:29
**music playing** **voice singing: ' ...the things I say and do, may not come clear through...'**
Kris Hampton 19:41
Minnie Riperton's voice!
Devin Dabney 19:43
Mmm hmm.
Kris Hampton 19:44
That's, that's one of the hard things about sampling. When I hear that I'm like, 'Oh my God, I want her voice on this.'
Devin Dabney 19:50
I know. Yes. I guess, I guess vocal sample... well, no; vocal samples were being used back then, too. I think it was more common to rip the instruments than the voices.
Kris Hampton 20:02
That's what they were looking for, for sure. And that, I think that part is obvious if you've heard "Check the Rhime". Here's the part that Q-Tip took, looped up:
recording 20:12
**music playing**
Kris Hampton 20:14
Just the main part, and that just loops over and over to create the bass for the verses. Alright, next up is the main horn sample. I don't, I don't think you can even hear this horn sample and not think of Tribe Called Quest at this point. It's from the Average White Band's "Love Your Life".
recording 20:49
**music playing**
Kris Hampton 21:04
White guys got some funk.
Devin Dabney 21:05
Yeah, I don't know why they call themselves the "Average White Band" because they either need to be like the "Above Average White Band"... Yeah, like they need to be like the, either "Above Average White Band" or the "Low-Key Black Band". Like "Secretly Black Band". There's a song they do... there was like this compilation on Instagram one time of all the songs that you thought were by black people, but were actually by white people. And I can't think of the song but there's a song they do that is like, I swear to God, I thought it was like, for my whole life, thought some like, some black person did this song. But yeah,
Kris Hampton 21:49
How could you not?
Devin Dabney 21:50
Yeah, they're, they're good, dude. And of course, of course, they would serve as the bass, like the, the like bass sample for a Native Tongue song, you know?
Kris Hampton 22:01
Yeah, totally. Exactly. And here, here's that horn loop looped up the way Q-Tip used it:
recording 22:13
**music playing**
Kris Hampton 22:19
That's the, that's the basics of it. And then, last one we're going to look at here, is... this one surprised me a little bit when I went looking. It's a drum pattern. And the drums from "Check the Rhime" are from various places, largely from "Hydra" by Grover Washington. This pattern though, is one that stands out for me and as soon as I hear it, it takes me to "Check the Rhime". Even though it's in a rap song that came out before "Check the Rhime". It's from Biz Markie's "Nobody Beats the Biz".
Devin Dabney 22:57
Okay.
recording 22:59
**music playing**
Devin Dabney 23:02
Yeah, of course.
Kris Hampton 23:13
And it's, he takes that like, little quick chunk, where the kicks just play over and over again. And it sounds like this when he loops it up. And it's got a little horn stab at the end:
recording 23:26
**music playing**
Devin Dabney 23:37
It was the beginning of the Pharrell start.
Kris Hampton 23:42
Exactly, yeah. Yeah, that's where Pharrell modeled the four count start from.
Devin Dabney 23:46
He heard that, as a child or however old he was back then, and was like... '
Kris Hampton 23:51
Trying to be Q-Tip.
Devin Dabney 23:52
'I get it. I see it now. I've got the download.'
Kris Hampton 23:57
Yeah. And for, for the folks who, who haven't heard "Check the Rhime" enough to like put all that together, I'm going to play just a little quick piece of "Check the Rhime" that includes all of those samples we just played:
recording 24:12
**music playing** **voice rapping: 'Back in the days on the Boulevard of Linden, we used to kick routines and the presence was fittin'. It was I, the Abstract; and me, the Five-Footer.'**
Kris Hampton 24:34
So good.
Devin Dabney 24:35
You know, in the, in the vein of talking about mixing, I think another thing that's great about this song is just how how well the bass and kick work together. I think just, yeah, because I mean you heard all those samples they weren't - they were mixed to be by themselves. So having the like, the bass and kick kinda like sandwich together like, have the like, you're ducking down parts of the bass and ducking down parts of the kick so that it like fits perfectly together. That's another thing I love about this song is when the bass comes in, it just like, it just fits so well in there. Like the, the Biz Markie sample I'm talking about. They just filtered it so that like the low low-end is gone and it's just that like, humming sound. So good.
Kris Hampton 25:24
Yeah, it's, it's incredible, really. You should go down the Bob Power rabbit hole and listen to some interviews with him. He's a, he's a professor now, um, I think at NYU? I might be getting that wrong. But he teaches music and mixing and engineering and maybe some, some musical theory or something. But really brilliant guy, and he talked about in one of the interviews I've listened to about making this album, you know, Tip and Ali would kind of give him what they wanted the feel of things to be. And he would want to know, like, what's the main sample that should be the thing that's on top? You know, it's the main focus, and he would like gather all this information. And then he would spend all this time cleaning up all these old samples and getting them to work together. And of course, it's this, you know, sonic shift. But then when "Midnight Marauders" came around, Tip and Ali came to him and was like, 'Don't clean anything up. We want it to sound dirty and dusty and gritty and more street,' you know, so he had to totally shift the way he had engineered their first album to create "Midnight Marauders".
Devin Dabney 26:42
Hmm. I'm wondering now like, thinking back to... I mean, it's been a little while since I've listened to "Midnight Marauders". But I'm curious now to go back and try to listen to it for that quality of...
Kris Hampton 26:55
Yeah, same.
Devin Dabney 26:56
...of feeling a little more unrefined on purpose. Huh, okay.
Kris Hampton 27:00
Yeah, it's it's super interesting to me. I love, I love hearing from those people who were making, you know, these things and how they made them and what they thought of them at the time.
Devin Dabney 27:12
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I said this already, I'm sure, but just like even just that era of, of hip hop, where things were starting to change so drastically, and just the, just like leaning into like, even more so leaning into the roots of like, our black people music, you know, jazz and... and just like, again, the afrocentricity. Like another group that I think of from this era that may not be as popular, but I still love is the Jungle Brothers.
Kris Hampton 27:45
Oh, yeah. For sure.
Devin Dabney 27:46
The, the album. Is it "Straight Out The Jungle"? Is that the name of the album where they're in the, they're in the jungle, and they're like peeking out, like?
Devin Dabney 27:50
That sounds right. Yup.
Devin Dabney 27:56
It's, oh, my God, I love, I love that album. Yeah, man, I, you know, I wish that I had found this music sooner, too, you know? Like, I mean, you, you got it right when it came out, right? But I actually didn't find like this era of hip hop, probably till I was like 17 or 18, actually. So I missed out on a lot of years.
Kris Hampton 28:20
An interesting story about finding this: you know, I talk about how I actually heard this song for the first time in the Lessons episode. And, and I had heard Tribe before, like, I had heard "Bonita Applebum", and "I Left My Wallet in El Segundo" off of their first album. But I wasn't entirely sold by it and I was trying to think about why I wasn't totally sold, and I think I hit on the reason. It was art class, I think my freshman year of high school. There was another, there was a guy in there who was also a hip hop head, and - another white dude - and he was constantly, you know, rapping during class and listening to music during class. And he would, he would play Tribe a lot. And that might actually be the first time I ever heard Tribe, was from him. But later that year, his name was also Chris, and we had these art projects, these big drawings, we were doing these huge charcoal drawings, and we had them in our racks. And mine is missing one day when I come in. And, and we find it in his rack. He had erased my last name and put his last name. He had failed to change the spelling of his first name, because he spelled his C-H-R-I-S, so it said K-R-I-S and then his last name. He just tried to jack my charcoal drawing. So I think I attach Tribe to this dude, and in turn, didn't like it because of that.
Devin Dabney 30:12
I mean, I mean...
Kris Hampton 30:13
That's all I can figure.
Devin Dabney 30:15
He, he sampled your drawing, you know? I feel like it was pretty, I don't know what the problem is. We just talked about how sampling can sometimes feel like stealing, but...
Kris Hampton 30:24
It was a Puffy version of sampling. He just took the thing and made it his, period.
Devin Dabney 30:30
Holy shit. The, the, clearly this gentleman did not think this through, like did he think that...
Kris Hampton 30:37
No, not even a little bit.
Devin Dabney 30:38
Did he think that like, you would just be like, 'Oh, well, I guess it says his name. So I guess it's his. Like, shit. I didn't draw this.' Or like, I don't know, like there was, there was just not a lot of thought. How old were y'all? There was not a lot of thought in this.
Kris Hampton 30:55
No. Fresh, freshman year of high school. So, old enough to know that's a bad call.
Devin Dabney 31:00
Yeah, good grief. I just can't get over the.... Yeah, he sampled your drawing. He's like, 'What? What's the problem.' Holy shit. Yeah, I understand that. I think that's one thing about music that can kind of be like a pain is that, especially for me, I associate very strongly like music with memories, good or bad. And so yeah, like a, like a shitty relationship can ruin a song for me or like a great memory can enhance a song for me. And so yeah, I could, I could see why, like, you would probably not want to listen to Tribe. Yeah, that totally makes sense.
Kris Hampton 31:45
You know, and back when I first heard this song, I mean it was exactly in the way that I, that I talk about in the episode where I would go to sleep, I would hit Play/Record/Pause on the tape deck, set my alarm so that I'd wake up when the Icy D radio show was coming on, record the radio show, and then I'd listen to it on the bus in the morning. And that's, that's the first time I heard "Check the Rhime". And I remember at the time it feeling a little lonely? Like nobody else around me was listening to this music. And I was having to like dig for it and really try to, you know, try to hear what was out there. And then just recently, I was listening to Nas's podcast, "The Bridge", and he talks about, that's how he was finding music in Queensbridge, there were these late night radio shows. And he would hit Play/Record/Pause on his tape deck and record it and listen to it the next day. And I was like, 'What?'
Devin Dabney 31:47
That's really cool.
Kris Hampton 31:51
Blown away by it. And then also listening to Talib Kweli's podcast, he had Hi-Tek on. And Hi-Tek is from Cincinnati, and he talked about Icy D's radio show - the first time I've ever heard anybody else talk about Icy D. But he talked about him as one of the like, leading figures of hip hop in Cincinnati. So I love when this shit all comes full circle.
Devin Dabney 33:13
Yeah, it's, it's really amazing because I mean, you got to grow up in hip hop culture when it was still small. I mean, like, even when it was big - quote, unquote - like when it was like making these international hits, the community was still relatively small. So it's not even that, like, it's not even that implausible that you might have been doing the same things as like, as all these other people. And yeah, I just, I really envy that you, you grew up in that era of hip hop. I mean, I'm sure I've said it before, but I just imagine it like backpackers roaming the land and like rap battling people, and I just, I would have loved that era. Like if I were a teenager in that year, that would have been me. So that's super cool.
Kris Hampton 34:03
I do feel pretty lucky to have grown up in the era that I did and where I did. We were def-, we definitely got a lot of spillover from New York, Chicago, Philadelphia; lot of the Midwest and East Coast hip hop ended up coming through Cincinnati at some time.
Devin Dabney 34:23
Yeah, that's another thing, too, is like you were also in a region where, like, their hip hop sound was still kind of developing, you know? I mean, like, for a while it was just the East and West coast show. And then like, I mean, I feel like the South has always been underplayed, but I mean, they obviously are a huge, huge role in hip hop culture. But yeah, the Midwest like wasn't, I wouldn't say on like, the, the hip hop map until, I don't know, like, I think maybe in the 90s? And like, and then you know, with Tech, and Nelly, and those people starting to become big like it started to show up as like, 'Oh, like the Midwest is like a place,' and I mean, obviously like you have Atmosphere, you have... there's a lot of people. And of course like Eminem, but do you get what I'm saying? Like you were in like, you were in the this... like you were in it as it was forming into what it was going to be - like it was a new culture that was influenced by all these other cultures around it, but it was, you know, in in a matter of 10 years after this album came out, it was going to be its own place, you know?
Kris Hampton 35:34
Yeah, I was listening to an interview with the guys from Tanya Morgan, Donwill and Von Pea and, and Donwill is from Cincinnati, came up in the same time period that I did and, and he talked about how Cincinnati was like in this perfect geographical location to get East Coast sound, West Coast sound. And the South was like trickling into what the rappers in Cincinnati were making and kind of that, you know, Midwest era in general. So, yeah, definitely feel lucky. Yeah, one of the things we have not talked about at all yet that I think is, is maybe what makes this album as good as it is, is kind of the, you know, the resurgence of or the initial surgence... Is that a word? Surgence?
Devin Dabney 36:31
Yeah. It is today.
Kris Hampton 36:33
Of, of Phife. On the first album, he's only on four songs. I think he's, you know... what I've heard since - what they talked about in the documentary and I've heard in interviews - is that he kind of wasn't taking it seriously. He just liked rapping for the fun of it on the first album. And in this one, it was, 'Okay, you have to take this serious,' and, and he really went for his on this album. And he's like, the Phife is like the everyman representative, you know? Q-Tip is kind of like, the cool guy that everybody wants to be, you know, whereas Phife is, like, just an average dude. And it's, it's an industry where everybody wanted to look and act like they were indestructible - and still do to a big degree. Here's Phife, calling himself the funky diabetic and always talking about how short he is. He just seemed like this regular dude, who loved the Knicks and battle rapping on the corner. A stark contrast to everything else that was going on at the time. And I don't know if there could have been a B.O.B or a Mac Miller or a Kanye - any of these rappers who are okay with being self-deprecating - without Phife.
Devin Dabney 37:55
Yeah. And, and I hadn't even really considered it that way until, until I listened to your episode once again. I mean, it just, I guess, because that kind of, like, honest, sort of perspective on yourself is something that I was already drawn to in hip hop when I found Tribe, it fit right into my, like, music palette, you know? Like, yeah, by that time, I mean, I was, I was 18 when I found like, I knew who they were, but like... I went through this phase, in my teenage years, where I was like, I'm just gonna, like, do my hip hop history. Like, I'm gonna listen to as much music as I can. And I went through Tribe's discography at that point, and... Yeah, I mean, just the way he rapped, didn't even seem that weird because of what I like to listen to. But yeah, just you brought that back into perspective for me of like, oh, yeah, like, it's... women don't like men that are short. So why would you say, why would you say that you're... and yeah, like, it just, I just didn't even consider it because it was like, yeah, I mean, but rappers always talk about their flaws. Well, at least now they do. So, yeah, that for 1991, that, that's pretty next level.
Kris Hampton 39:11
Yeah, it definitely felt like a shift. Felt like something different and, and I feel like I didn't really give Phife his credit for a long time. You know, it just it felt like Q-Tip was the one carrying everything. And I, and I do love some Q-Tip solo work, but it's not as good as when Phife is there. It's not as good as when Ali is there. It's not as good as when Jarobi you know, is there as a spiritual advisor of some sort, you know, so, yeah, they definitely had something really special.
Devin Dabney 39:49
Yeah, and I don't know if - you've kind of given me permission to say this and feel like I won't get in trouble - but I'll tell you from my perspective as an 18-year-old like aspiring hip hop historian that Phife was the best rapper out of all of them. Like I liked Q-Tip because of who he was, and obviously he's a great like beat maker, and he's like, kind of the, the RZA of their, of the, of the Tribe. But I didn't necessarily think he was like, I didn't think he was as good of a rapper as Phife was. To me, he was, like, Phife was always the best and Q-Tip was just, he was the leader. And he obviously can rap, but do you get what I'm saying? Like, to me...
Kris Hampton 40:29
Yeah, totally.
Devin Dabney 40:30
...there are people like that, that part of what makes them so great is that when they are in a position to lead that they become a leader, you know? Like, like people like, like a Tyler, The Creator, or like the a RZA that I mentioned earlier, like part of what makes them who they are, is the fact that they are a leader. So when you take away their followers, if you will, like it changes them. And I'm not saying that they have to be leaders, like obviously, Tyler can make music on his own and all that. But yeah, there's just something different about Tyler, The Creator as a solo artist versus when he was leading this gang of like badass kids.
Kris Hampton 41:12
Right. I think the song is the first time Q-Tip refers to himself as The Abstract, I think. And you know, that perfectly encapsulates what you're talking about. He was, Q-Tip is great, no, no question. But he was much more abstract and, you know, willing to go in a bunch of different directions. Yeah. Whereas Phife was your favorite rapper's favorite rapper.
Devin Dabney 41:40
Yep. Yeah, yeah. And that's a, you even kind of pointed out another correlation between those three that I just mentioned, is that they're all, they're all like, strangely different than the people that they're with, you know? Like, Tyler is very different than the rest of the, of the Odd Future Crew. And the, the RZA is very different than the rest of the Wu-Tang Clan. Like he, yeah, they're all like these deep, like visionary thinkers, you know, and being a visionary isn't necessarily about executing, it's more about, like, surrounding yourself with people who can help you execute and letting you sit in this space of big ideas. You know, so I think all three of those - and probably more people if I really thought about it - like that's kind of how the leader of the hip hop collective usually works, you know?
Kris Hampton 42:30
Yeah, I mean, RZA knows he needs a Raekwon who's gonna just go hard, just bars, you know? He knows he needs that. Yeah. So, same, same here. Interesting fact I came across while researching for this - I'm curious, what was your first rap name?
Devin Dabney 42:54
Do I have to say it?
Kris Hampton 42:56
Oh, yeah.
Devin Dabney 42:56
I'm like trying to think. Oh, Lord, um,
Kris Hampton 42:59
Mine was "Krazee K": K-R-A-Z-E-E, K. Yeah, that was my first rap name.
Devin Dabney 43:06
Um, I actually think my, my first rap name was pretty tame. It was just "Deuce". Because I really like the number two and you know, two D's: Devin Dabney. Deuce. It all worked together.
Kris Hampton 43:18
Yeah, I like it. I like it. Q-Tip's was "MC Love Child". And Phife's was, Phife's was "Crush Connection".
Devin Dabney 43:30
Well, huh. I actually, actually kind of like that. I mean, yeah, I actually kind of like that. It would, I think it would work right now. Like if there was like... you know what it sounds like, it sounds like a, like a pop punk band, like a Paramore or something. You know, maybe that's why I like it. It doesn't sound like a rap name. But I do like the name.
Kris Hampton 43:55
Whenever, I remember whenever I would, like, tell any of my white friends. Q-Tip's name, I'd be like 'Oh, this is Q-Tip.' They'd be like, 'What? His name is Q-Tip?' And it sounds so normal to me now, but when you think about it, Q-Tip is a very strange name, but it's definitely better than MC Love Child, so...
Devin Dabney 44:18
I think MC Love Child may be the name of my next album, if I can, like work something out. That's pretty hilarious. I mean, what - he was probably a teenager when he thought of that? I'd be like...
Kris Hampton 44:31
Yeah, I mean, he was a teenager when he made this album so, they were still in high school.
Devin Dabney 44:36
He was at the, he was at the painting sampling age so I don't think that everything was thought out at that point. I mean, it's, it's funny though, because honestly, rap names do have to sound kind of silly. Like I think that, I mean, most of them sound silly, like out of context, you know? Some I think nowadays, like it's more like, the grownup rap names, like it's more normal to name yourself after your name, you know? Like Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole. But yeah, like, I mean Eminem. Like, it's easy to say now, but he named himself after a candy! You know, I mean, obviously, it's like Marshall Mathers, I get it, but I'm just saying, Eminem. I mean, Childish Gambino got his name from a Wu-Tang generator, like name-generator, you know?
Kris Hampton 45:25
Yeah, I love that.
Devin Dabney 45:25
Like just the first thing he saw, like, 'Alright, that's it. Childish Gambino.' What the fuck does that mean? So yeah, I don't know. It's like this weird, like middle ground where it needs to sound weird enough that it's not... it's recognizable, but not so weird that it turns off most people, you know? Why did he name himself Q-Tip? Like, I'm wondering what the origin behind that is?
Devin Dabney 45:52
Yeah, like he's making fun of him. Yeah, I couldn't imagine. I don't know. I just also wonder how the name came to be because I can't imagine him being like, 'My name is gonna be Q-Tip.' and everybody being like, ' Word. Dope! That's a good name.' Like, you know what I mean? Like, what was that conversation like?
Kris Hampton 45:52
I don't know. I couldn't find why that is his name. I do think it's funny that in this song, they say, 'Phife says clean out your ears and just check the word.' I'm just wondering if he's like, 'Yo, your name is Q-Tip.'
Kris Hampton 46:30
Chuck D gave Busta Rhymes his name...
Kris Hampton 46:34
Oh, wow.
Kris Hampton 46:35
Because because his like aggressive style reminded him of an NFL player whose name was Buster Rhymes. So Chuck named him Busta Rhymes. I don't think Chuck D named Q-Tip.
Devin Dabney 46:49
No, no, that what you just described was like King Arthur getting Excalibur, like.
Kris Hampton 46:54
Exactly.
Devin Dabney 46:55
Damn, that's a cool, see? That's a dope.... And Busta Rhymes is obviously a pretty cool name. And it just so happened. Yeah, Busta Rhymes. Holy shit. What a coincidence there.
Kris Hampton 47:06
What are your favorite bars on this song?
Devin Dabney 47:10
Man, honestly, this is gonna, this is one of those where it's really hard for me to pick because really, I just love this whole song in its entirety. But one line that I, that always makes me laugh is, is in the beginning, when they're doing the call and response, where it's like, "It was I, The Abstract. And me The Five-Footer, I kicks the mad style, so step off the frankfurter." Like, like, it's just is so goofy. And it just always makes me laugh. No matter how many times I hear it.
Kris Hampton 47:40
I was looking at Genius, just seeing what people said about the lyrics like, what their idea of what the meaning is. And yeah, for that line, it just says, 'What does this mean?'
Devin Dabney 47:52
Oh, come on. I feel like it's pretty obvious what it means, right? Like, it's just like, goofy. And like, yeah, I felt like it was pretty obvious. I thought you were gonna tell me... sometimes on Genius, they'll do this thing where they'll take incredibly obvious lines like that, and they'll develop this elaborate story that's obviously not true. And I actually kind of love that that happens sometimes. But that is not the line that I would pick out to be like, 'What does, what does that mean?'
Kris Hampton 48:26
It was somebody looking for deep meaning. Yeah, no, there's no deep meaning here. How can this be anything?
Devin Dabney 48:34
Yeah, sometimes it is what it is, you know? But yeah, that I think, that's the one that I pick out, that stands out to me, but really just the whole song just like flows together. And I guess another one I think of is when Q-Tip goes, "Record company people are shady." Like it just sticks out.
Kris Hampton 48:53
I do love that. That's, that's one of those that you know, when you're performing it, you don't even say that line, right? You just hold the mic out to the crowd. Everybody's gonna say it. For me, I was uh, when this came out, I was definitely really into sports history. And I was like, going way back reading sports history as much as I could. And so for me the line that really hit me that I loved was "Got the scrawny legs but I move just like Lou Brock. With speed, I'm agile, plus I'm worth your while. One hundred percent intelligent black child." I just love that whole phrase. And Lou Brock is, I think he's still in second place for most stolen bases ever behind Rickey Henderson so I was a, I was a Lou Brock fan and I was just blown away when he was mentioned in a rap song.
Devin Dabney 48:57
Yeah, classic hip hop thing to refer to, to sports in some way. That's like such a common, that's like a go-to thing for metaphors, I feel like is sports.
Kris Hampton 49:55
Yeah, and it's interesting that it came from Q-Tip because Phife was definitely the sports head of the group.
Devin Dabney 50:06
Maybe he sampled Phife's rhymes.
Kris Hampton 50:09
He just erased Phife's name. He didn't write this.
Devin Dabney 50:13
'My name ain't something dumbass like Q-Tip. Like I didn't write this. It looks like I wrote it, but it says Q-Tip, so I guess he wrote it.' Proofs by A Tribe Called Quest. Hahaha, oh shit.
Kris Hampton 50:31
Alright, if you're watching this on YouTube or listening to it anywhere but Spotify, you're missing half of the podcast. Every other week we release short, focused essays set to beats followed by the full song that we're learning the lesson from. Those are only available on Spotify, at least for now. End of the season, I may figure out a way to get those out. We've got all these links, videos, things we talked about, more bonus material at the blog posts for these episodes at hiphoptaughtmeeverything.com. You can find us on Instagram and Twitter. We'll see you next time for the final episode of the season, when an antisocial extrovert teaches me duality.