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People's Instinctive
Travels and the Paths of Rhythm by
A Tribe Called Quest (Jive/ 1990)
My God, I haven't played this record for more years than I care to remember,
which makes getting reacquainted with A Tribe Called Quest's lazy, lilting
and vaguely jazzy take on hip hop all the sweeter.
I originally arrived at Peoples Instinctive Travels… after
following the sweet "daisy age" trail laid down by De La Soul
on their Three Feet High and Rising album. But as far as hip-hop
generally was concerned, a few years earlier I'd latched onto the Def
Jam stuff such as Public Enemy, Run DMC and the Beastie Boys, but the
likes of De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest and the Jungle Brothers were
taking rap music in a more laid back, playful and decidedly less militant
and less obviously testosterone-fuelled direction, creating an agreeable
musical vibe which chimed perfectly with the clubby post-rave rhythms
of the likes of Dee-Lite (A Tribe Called Quest's Q-Tip guests on 'Groove
is in the Heart'), Saint Etienne, Primal Scream and Definition of Sound.
It was all pretty optimistic-sounding stuff, which to me, seemed to usher
in a time when briefly it seemed that black and white were dancing to
the same rhythms in the same clubs and raves. Around this time, for instance,
I went to an event at Alexandra Palace in north London which featured
the aforementioned Dee-Lite and Jungle Brothers together with Big Audio
Dynamite on the same bill: a line-up which I reckoned pretty much summed
up the spirit of the time perfectly (afterwards there were DJs playing
and embarrassingly I remember dancing with much energy and earnest conviction
to "I'm Free" by the Soup Dragons whilst feeling a profound
sense that the song's lyrics, "I'm free to do whatever I want, any
old time" were, most definitely saying something to me about my life.
But then, I was young, single and, having been in London for just over
a year, was still fired-up by the possibilities offered by the big smoke).
The reality was, however, that this was essentially a BAD gig with Dee-Lite
and Jungle Brothers as support, and I don't recall there having been that
many black faces in the audience. Likewise, I doubt there were too many
white faces at ragga/ dancehall gigs. So despite what I – as a young
idealist – wanted to believe, the truth was that the summer of 1990
marked the highpoint of "baggy", and all that had really happened
was that a bunch of white students and indie kids (such as myself) had
stopped listening to the likes of the Jesus and Mary Chain, Wedding Present
and House of Love; had stopped being so self-obsessed and had learned
to throw a few ecstasy-assisted shapes on the dancefloor. But if that
meant that the same white kids were finally turning on to black music
for the first time and buying records by the likes of A Tribe Called Quest,
Soul II Soul and Gang Starr as well as the Stone Roses and Happy Mondays,
then it wasn't such a bad thing.
It has to be said though, that the witty use of samples (from white artists
as well as black) and idiosyncratic rhymes of De La Soul and A Tribe Called
Quest et al, was essentially the sound of middle class black America which,
in spite of its Afro-centric lyrical consciousness, was something which
white college kids could relate to in the way that they simply couldn't
with many of the harsher ghetto-centric lyrical concerns of the gangsta
rap which superseded it.
Either way, the happy smiley vibe of seeming cultural togetherness was
to fragment the following year with the dual ascendancy of the aforementioned
gangsta on the one hand, and angry white rock – in the form of grunge
– on the other. But that wasn't before A Tribe Called Quest managed
to score a big sample-laden crossover hit with "Can I Kick It",
which drew heavily on Lou Reed's "A Walk on the Wild Side",
as well as Ian Dury and the Blockheads' "What a Waste".
Copyright: Poke-in-the-Eye Publishing 2005