I went into Beats, Rhymes, and Life hoping that I wouldn't have to say that Midnight Marrauders and The Low End Theory are the only albums by A Tribe Called Quest that matter. I was really hoping that. Even though People's Instinctive Travels... got a 5 Mic rating in The Source, when I listened to it a couple of years ago I was not impressed by it's performance (like GSP) and reviewed it here on the site. I had this album lying around and decided to pop in it, hoping for some gems. Well there definitely were some, but they are few and far between and still not truly good enough songs to qualify them as gems. I can't really comment on the Tribe's final album, The Love Movement, because I've never heard it nor do I plan to anytime this calendar year. Today though, I'll take a quick look at Beats, Rhymes, and Life and share some thoughts.

The performances on the album by Q-Tip and Phife Dawg are relatively simplistic and uninspired, almost as if they were unwilling to move with the times. Emcee Consequence is on the album quite a bit, but it really doesn't add to detract from the finished product. In an era where albums like ATLiens and Me Against The World were changing the way that we approach hip-hop, the Tribe chose to stay stuck in 1989, something that certain rappers even in 2009 continue to do (see KRS-One). So what we have here is two emcees who have shown their ability to be ahead of the curve on past releases, but chose to stick to the status quo. As a result, we have to rely on the production to make this worth a spin, and thankfully at least THAT is decent.

"The Pressure" has a nice old-school hip-hop vibe complete with scratches and light percussion. There are DJ Premier-esque moments here, and quite a few, and you know how much I love that man. The rapping on here is greatly masked by the Funkadelic sample, but Q-Tip's rhyming is definitely back on the level that it should be. There are rhymes on this song that really show glimpses of the potential that Tip and Phife could've shown us. "A God fearin' folk cos we all from the yolk // Of one breed, one seed, to good goals we proceed // nowadays I strive to be a very good influence // even though not too long ago I was a truant // now I'm droppin' it on this and many broad topics // from man's obsession with money to holy prophets". Good street poetry.

Besides that, the album suffers from a staleness and feeling of sameness throughout. Even though sometimes the lyrics reflect shades of change, more often than not the simplistic beats mask any kind of enjoyment. Even though that's a rarity ("Jam", "Word Play" and "Separate/Together" for example), the main fault is, like I said, the opposite. No disrespect to the dead, but Jay Dee is one of the most overrated producers in rap; period. I can appreciate jazz samples and sombre beats, but sometimes it just gets boring. Most songs are just good, or maybe even OK, but other than two or three songs, there's really no reason to revisit Beats, Rhymes, and Life, Grammy nomination or not. Some songs just plain suck though ("Crew").