People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm

Approaching A Tribe Called Quest's seminal debut in 2015 is a loaded venture. The Queens, N.Y. trio (and sometimes "y" quartet, counting Jarobi) is one of the most revered acts in hip-hop—and with good reason. As part of the Afrocentric and innovative Native Tongues collective—which included De La Soul,  Jungle Brothers, Queen Latifah, Black Sheep, and others—they created and refined a template for '90s hip-hop that was street-astute, worldly, and more inspirational than aspirational.

Even without the Native Tongues' legacy, Tribe's heritage is not a light one. There's no stretch in saying that, without A Tribe Called Quest, the biggest rap artists of this year—Drake, Future, and Kendrick Lamar—would not exist as they do. Drake would not be Drake without Kanye West's 808s and Heartbreak; Kanye would not be Kanye without his Tribe influences. Without Tribe, the Dungeon Family—birthplace of Outkast, Goodie Mob, and Future—arguably does not exist. And the improvisational looseness of Kendrick's opus is unthinkable without the innumerable branches of jazz and hip-hop sprouting from Tribe's experimentation, which differed significantly from the cooler jazz-sample leanings of Stetsasonic and Gang Starr. There's no Mos Def, no J. Cole, no Common, no J Dilla, no Digable Planets, no Neptunes, and no Clipse as we know them. Tribe is that important. And this album—the first ever to receive a perfect "5 Mic" rating from The Source magazine—is where it all began.