A Tribe Called Quest

A Tribe Called Quest were the most commercially successful group to come out of the Native Tongues collective: a group of hip hop artists known for positive, uplifting, Afrocentric lyrics, as well as unique samples, resulting in jazz rap and alternative hip hop. ATCQ’s debut album, People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm (1990), was a groundbreaking example of alt hip hop and the first album to earn a “5-mic” rating from seminal hip hop magazine The Source. The group formed in Queens, New York, in 1985, and were composed of Kamaal “Q-Tip” Fareed, Malik “Phife Dawg” Taylor, Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Jarobi White.