A Tribe Called Quest - The Low End Theory

Almost every argument about the greatest hip-hop album ever made eventually has to deal with The Low End Theory. Released in September 1991, it is the record where Q-Tip stripped his production down to drums, an upright bass and as little else as he could get away with, and where Phife Dawg arrived fully formed as the group's second voice.

Ron Carter plays bass on "Verses From The Abstract," which was less a novelty than a thesis statement — this is jazz, made by people who grew up on records rather than in clubs. "Check The Rhime" is Q-Tip and Phife on a Linden Boulevard rooftop, and the back-and-forth still sets the standard for two rappers who actually listen to each other. "Scenario" closes it with Busta Rhymes detonating a verse that launched a career.

Bob Power engineered it, and the space he left in the mixes is why the album still sounds contemporary thirty-four years on. Everything from Soulquarian neo-soul to whatever gets called jazz rap today has this record somewhere in its family tree.