A Tribe Called Quest: The Low End Theory (2LP, 45rpm, red & green vinyl) [VINYL ME, PLEASE]

Why you'll love it

Vinyl Me, Please had Ryan Smith remaster and cut this 2LP set at 45rpm, on red & green vinyl with a listening notes booklet by Marcus J. Moore and an art print by Joe Grant. The album went platinum, and in 2022 it joined the Library of Congress National Recording Registry.

This edition

• 2LP set
• 45rpm
• Red & green vinyl
• Remastered and cut by Ryan Smith
• Listening notes booklet by Marcus J. Moore
• Art print by Joe Grant

About the album

Q-Tip wanted that straight bass sound, so the group did the obvious thing and called jazz bass legend Ron Carter. Carter agreed to play on "Verses from the Abstract" on one condition, a clean vocabulary, and the album that followed brought jazz deep into the heart of hip hop. It came out on Jive in September 1991 as the follow-up to People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm.

Q-Tip, Phife Dawg and Ali Shaheed Muhammad build tracks from lean drums and warm low end, and engineer Bob Power painstakingly cleaned the crackle and pops from the samples. "Check the Rhime" trades verses between Q-Tip and Phife like old friends finishing each other's sentences, "Jazz (We've Got)" glides, "Buggin' Out" thumps, and "Scenario" with Leaders of the New School and a young Busta Rhymes ends the record in a riot. Diamond D, Lord Jamar and Sadat X turn up on "Show Business."

Rolling Stone placed it at No. 43 on its 2020 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. At 45rpm, the bass finally has the legroom Ron Carter was promised.

Also at Kops: more A Tribe Called Quest on vinyl · browse Hip Hop / R&B

Tracklist

Listen

On Vinyl Me, Please / Jive, a reissue of the 1991 album.