A Tribe Called Quest — Midnight Marauders

At the height of their dazzling splendor, A Tribe Called Quest complete a trinity of classic albums by releasing their third project in three years.

Production is mainly handled by the group, with one beat each for external beatmakers Skeff Anselm ("8 Million Stories") and Large Professor ("Keep It Rollin'"). The rhythm created each time by the producers of A Tribe Called Quest is excellent: jazzy boom bap, dynamic and lively drum, and musical and melodic samples layered from different genres, especially from the seventies. From their brilliantly skilled and diverse choices, it emerges a sound crisp and robust, clear and hard, but not as difficult as most other albums produced with the East Coast sound of the period, this soundscape is entrancing. The whole project is musically flawless and boasts the best hip-hop production of the year. The LP features a few guests, Raphael Wiggins, Busta Rhymes and Large Professor, whose beat is up to that of the other guys, provide excellent performances, while Trugoy of De La Soul is placed where he cannot do excessive damage.

Lyrically, the group makes progress: the album is almost exclusively braggadocio, with some socio-conscious and vicious extracts. Their lyrics are pretty simplistic and functional to the rhythms, but, as in the great hip-hop albums, it's their execution that makes them work best: Phife Dawg considerably improves his pen game and continues to pull off excellent bars throughout the fifty minutes, effortlessly exchanging verses with Q-Tip, in a smooth, relaxed and dope style. Having established the new hip-hop sound several times with their previous two albums, A Tribe Called Quest returns, and instead of riding their own sound like all the other players are doing, they develop a new one. Again. It's another success. They become one of the most innovative groups in hip-hop and their genius seems to have no end: the trio gets the participation of Laurel Dann, secretary of Jive Records whose voice is digitized to provide the interludes as a "tour guide" throughout the whole record, inspiring new generations of MCs.

Released by Jive Records, the album gained a significant commercial following, entering the top 10 of pop records, reaching the top of the rap chart and being certified platinum in 1995. It gets a warm critical reception — it's exclusively panned by mumble rap fans and De La Soul fans, curiously — who blesses it as a «classic» in retrospect. The album is one of the most enjoyable and fun experiences a listener can have within the hip-hop genre: it's bright, polished, and beautiful, most of all it's coherent, managing to maintain a very high and regular level of musical quality all the time. On a perpetually fantastic production, the guys get it right for over fifty minutes, and deliver their lyrics alchemically and with an unassailable rapping style, keeping cheerful and maintaining a youthful, positive and relaxed mood thanks to Jarobi's forays into the studio. Every single track is an authentic worked and refined gem, here are some of the best hip-hop moments of the decade, several songs are stunning. It's the definitive Native Tongues album: out of 14 cuts, there is an intro and zero skits, no skits, on a Native Tongues record. In short, the A Tribe Called Quest dudes improve hard-to-improve albums, and create a perfect immortal document.

Rating: 10/10.