Music is Timeless
My freshman year of college, I wrote an album review on The Low End Theory by A Tribe Called Quest. I had never heard this album, but I was familiar with a few songs from my older brother. Being the 18-year-old I was, I wanted to pick an album off the list that was “cool”. As the youngest sibling, anything my older brothers liked was cool to me, and there my newfound love for music was born.
I had always loved music, so I thought. But there was a lack of appreciation. A lack of critical thinking. People always said, “Art is subjective.” I was well aware of the cliche. But I never thought deeply about the things I liked. I never wanted to form a wrong opinion about anything: Books I read, movies I watched, and definitely not music. Just like that, try-hard anxious kid in English class, I did the assignment, but I didn’t understand. I waited for the Genius Interviews of my favorite songs to understand the lyrics. For the first time, I was tasked with unpacking something that wasn’t going to be explained back to me later. That’s what most of college, graduate school, and adult life is. So many things are not right or wrong. I feel confident in having my own opinions. I feel confident in unpacking the meanings behind things I love. I understand what art can mean to me.
I was making a new playlist the other day, and I thought of this essay. I decided I would dig it up from the archives and repurpose it. The bones are there; the writing leaves something to be desired. While re-listening, I also gained some new thoughts, and while re-reading, I thought of my new perspectives. Fittingly, my original essay has been altered to reflect these changes, but I tried to keep some of the 18-year-old stye (for no reason other than my own personal joy).
I think it is interesting that “classics” never go out of style. I think it is interesting what we consider “classics.” I think a lot about how life was before the age of technology. Before the interconnectivity of the internet and instant access to any information, fact or opinion. Would the classics still become beloved today? Or were they a product of their time? Are things bad now, like the media tends to present? Or are we just overwhelmed by options that we no longer have to settle for imperfections? This review isn’t really a review at all anymore, but a discussion of lasting media and the meanings they carry with them.
I am a big believer that media shapes acceptance. Allowing future generations to experience more inclusive media allows them to understand themselves better. I wrote about this in my Comp-het article as well, but it also applies to the following essays: Seeing characters you relate to allows you to see yourself. This was an idea I didn’t understand as white girl in America until it came to understanding my sexually much later in life, which I dive deeper into in the linked article. Not only does representation in media apply to diversifying media, but also to the messages it spreads. Teaching kids early on about real-life issues, racism, homophobia, poverty, and the real history of the country they grow up in develops empathy. An empathetic generation could solve so much of what we see wrong in politics today. Feeling seen and understood by media is what makes us less alone, makes us passionate; makes us driven. That’s why, even in this blog that I post on for fun, I want to spread the message of acceptance when telling my stories. You never know what will be someone’s gateway into a new way of thinking.
A lot of what I wrote my freshman year of college wasn’t groundbreaking, but it was to me at the time. I wanted to revamp and edit these essays to show the timeliness of these ideas. Now more than ever, there is an importance of media literacy. I hope I can inspire some of you to look deeper into what you consume, and look deeper into yourselves. At the bare minimum, I’ll inspire you to listen to some of my favorite songs.
I’m sure you don’t need a first-year college student to tell you this, but music is constantly evolving. Music encapsulates the time period it was written in. Looking back on musical history shows how far our society has come. Albums from over twenty years ago paved the way for the new-age sound we hear today.
Let’s go back to the 90s. If you're like me, young and full of life, you were not yet born in the 1990s; So let me give you some context. Hip hop music was taking off, especially in New York. People gathered from every borough to play their music. The music was about unity, love, parties, drugs, anything and everything. It was truly the golden age for the genre. But it was also a time of violence and police brutality. Black Lives Matter Movements were gaining publicity; A group of well-known artists banded together to create the non-violent movement to show hip-hop wasn’t violent. Music was being used to spread a message for the first time, especially surrounding people of color and different cultures. Hip-hop was being used to change the world.
Hip-hop groups started to form around African culture and jazz music. The music was fun and catchy on the surface, but had meaning and soul; Real problems were the main themes in the lyrics, on top of recognizable beats and samples, often overlooked by mass media. The 90s hip-hop groups shaped music into what it is today while also showing cultural pride and spreading justice. This was also the beginning of the introduction of women into the genre. The groups collaborated to create The Native Tongues, who founded this new wave. This group gave birth to many new groups, including A Tribe Called Quest.
A Tribe Called Quest’s second album, The Low End Theory, was born in this era. The “low” in Low End Theory refers to the low, hard-hitting downbeat featured in every song. According to group member Phife Dawg, the title also refers to the low status held by black men in this period. A Tribe wasn’t just writing hit songs; they were spreading a message and changing the world. They were no longer rapping about sex and putting people down; they were storytellers. Formed in New York in 1985, the group contained rapper and main producer Q-Tip, rapper Phife Dawg, DJ and co-producer Ali Shaheed Muhammad, and rapper Jarobi White.
“Rap is not pop. If you call it that, then stop.”Q-Tip: “Check The Rhime”This was a time of sampling, creating this modern mix of genres. Groups like A Tribe Called Quest were infusing rock and jazz with hip-hop and rapping over it about black pride and positivity. This was also the time of breaking the standards; artists could be funny and tell jokes, but still have music that was taken seriously by their listeners. Many rappers and artists are still doing this today, although many rappers focus on flexing their cash, drugs, and women, there are artists influenced by A Tribe. Artists such as Kanye West, Pharrell, and The Roots have all listed A Tribe Called Quest and its members as an inspiration.
Tribe’s music is often funny and entertaining, but it also has real meaning and activist undertones. The song “What?” samples Paul Humphrey’s 1974 song “Uncle Willie’s Dream,” and features Q-Tip asking a series of questions all starting with “What”. There’s a plethora of funny lines and references with some more serious notes:
“What is hip-hop if it doesn't have violence? Chill for a minute, Doug E. Fresh said silence (*four second pause*)”
Q-Tip is referencing the non-violent movement, specifically artist Doug E. Fresh. Fresh wrote an empowering song, “Self Destruction,” which started the movement and arguably ended the gangsta rap era. The most famous song on the album “Scenario” is a little different. It is much faster rapping with every artist in the group having multiple verses and features from Leaders Of The New School. Every voice is unique and groovy with one steady beat behind the entirety of the song that somehow never gets boring. This song is the last on the album, finishing strong with an almost finale feel, bringing the whole group together to drop their hottest bars. “Scenario” became a legendary song in hip-hop. All artists on the track brought their own style and created a rhapsody that no one had ever heard anything like before.
The album is jazzy and catchy with real lyrics and stories, that never get old, trust me. Even editing this 5 years later, I love this album and am still discovering new meanings to old favorite lines. A Tribe Called Quest fronted a new sound of music, mixing jazz with hip-hop. The album encapsulates mostly electronic sounds generated by producers but features jazz instruments such as saxophone and horns, along with bass guitar and snare drums. Listening to this album is like experiencing a multitude of genres all at the same time.
“How far must you go to gain respect? Um…Well, it’s kind of simple: just remain your own.Or you’ll be crazy, sad, and alone.”Q-Tip: “Check The Rhime”The album was a huge influence on the hip-hop genre and black community, and it was also recognized as a hit. The Low End Theory was one of the first applications of jazz to rap music. They paved the way for sampling and remixing in a way that is no longer possible today. When A Tribe started, they didn’t have a band; they had records. The group found old tracks and reimagined them. It was only in a few songs, such as “Verses By The Abstract,” where musicians like Ron Carter played original music. Music now is littered with copyright laws, making sampling nearly impossible (unless you can afford to buy the rights to very expensive tracks). They were doing something they had never seen done. Layering different hip-hop tracks on top of jazz samples with nothing but hope that it would turn out good. Q-Tip was mixing tracks in his head and adding different beats and pauses to get it to be perfect. Each sample only served one purpose: the bass from the 1973 track “A Chant for Bu,” mixed with the drums from another created opening track “Excursions.”
“…listening to hip-hop, My pops used to say it reminded him of be-bop. I said, ‘Well daddy don’t you know that things go in cycles”Q-Tip: “Excursions”
Although hip-hop might be a genre you overlook or take for granted, it was so much more in the '90s. A Tribe Called Quest gave us this new wave of music. They broke the standards and topped charts. The Low End Theory was different and better and jazzy and political and fun and fresh and any other positive adjective you could think of to describe music. The album shows us history, a frozen moment in time of the development of hip-hop.
Note from Author 2026: Looking back at this essay written in 2021, I think about how political the world has come. I thought about not using this essay in fear of white-splaining Black culture. My appreciation for this class and this album will never fade, I would not be the writer I am today without this experience, and I would have far worse taste in hip-hop music. I also think about the fact this was all my authentic work without the use of AI or outside resources, because there was no information on the topic besides interviews that I dug up and searched through. I hope to channel this writing style again and not feel the need to always say the “right” thing with my opinions. This piece was pretty good for a 18-year-old!
Why Should We Listen
I grew up listening to music. The type of music my parents had on their iPods. I found that as a child, you don’t process the world the same way as you do when you grow up. I listened to the same songs every day while my mom showered, her pink iPod blasting through our beige walls. I knew the lyrics, but I didn’t understand them. I heard the music every day, but I wasn’t really listening. My dad moved out of my mother’s house and into his old sailboat docked in the Coronado Navy Base Marina. Because this was not really a proper living situation to raise children in, my brothers and I only visited him every other weekend. I have found memories of my dad’s boat at this point in my childhood. Lying in the sun, hearing the bass through the Bose speaker vibrate the floors from below deck. Music holds memories; You could love or hate a song because of when and where you heard it. The music from my childhood will always make me smile, even silly songs or ones with sad lyrics will make me smile anyday without fail. It reminds me of when times were simple, and I was a kid listening to my parents' music, with no biases of my own.
My mom’s one playlist that she played every day without fail for about six years contained a plethora of popular music ranging in genres. Songs like “Boom Boom Pow,” by The Black Eyed Peas, followed by Katy Perry’s “Firework.” I danced, I sang, I laughed. The songs my mother played hold a special place in my heart, as I’m sure many songs spark nostalgia for you. But they were much more than catchy tunes to me.
Where Is The Love?
Where Is The Love is an early 2000s hip-hop song by The Black Eyed Peas. This song encapsulates the feeling of my childhood. I think it was the first rap song I learned all the lyrics to, but to be fair, I wasn’t listening to much rap before the age of 9. When I grew up, I would put this song on in my car, and my friends would sing along. I started actually listening to the lyrics. “Over here on the streets, the police shoot the people, put the bullets in 'em.” Serious topics were being sung by children like me who were dancing in front of their mothers’ bathrooms. “Can't we all just get along?” Powerful, positive messages in a hip-hop song.
Songs like these are teaching their listeners. We can listen, learn, and apply music like the things we hear as children, “look both ways when you cross the street,” or “Sharing is caring.” The conversation can shift from sound to education. If we teach our children the things The Black Eyed Peas wrote about, they will never know a world without it. If we listen to each other, we can better ourselves.
Better People
This song is a little less common and relatable. The only person I have ever heard play this song is my dad, even though it was quite popular circa 2007. We would sit in the hot San Diego sun on the deck of the boat, and he would bring out his 1990s Bose speaker, and I would hope “Better People” by Xavier Rudd would come on.
Since this song is less popular amongst my generation, I will give more details about the meaning. Better People is on the album White Moth, which was released in 2007. It is described on Wikipedia as a mix of folk, reggae, rock, and world music. The song lists good things people are doing in the world, such as saving whales, giving food to the hungry, and teaching children. The chorus goes as follows, “We have everything we need, and I will care for you, 'Cause you cared for me. And we all have opinions, some of them get through, but there are better people with more good to do, good to do.” Am I saying listening to this song made me grow up to be a completely selfless, philanthropic person? No, but I want to emphasize that there is so much music in the world that is positive and should be listened to.
Every time this song is played, I am instantly filled with serotonin. I don’t have a lot of good memories surrounding my dad or very many memories at all, but I would like to reflect on my time with him in a good light. I like to think that my dad played this song intentionally in hopes of raising his children to be better people. Music like this can have so much to take away from. I wish it were something more people had heard.
Note from Author 2026: I have a tattoo of this album (White Moth by Xavier Rudd) now! I love it to this day!
Music has always been seen as an outlet in my mind. When life is boring, stressful, sad, or happy, there’s a song for it. I can remember all the lyrics to “Where Is The Love?” and “Better People.” I can picture the foggy bathroom mirror after I climbed onto the counter to draw a smiley face; I can picture the sun that glistened off the choppy water, and I can hear the music. Music will always be there for you. Music can always be learned from.
Before music, technology, and writing, information was shared through the spoken word. We only knew what was taught to us and what we experienced. No one person can experience the whole world, but they can read about it. They could listen to other people with different stories and different experiences, and apply their knowledge to their own lives. Listening to The Black Eyed Peas’ and Xavier Rudd’s stories and songs helps us to better understand the world through others’ eyes. We can all be better people and spread love in our world by listening to each other.
Note from Author 2026: It’s hard to believe I understood the importance of spreading love through media in 2021. All of my opinions from this second essay stayed the same, I made very few changes (mostly grammar). I actually teared up a little reading my corny messages at the end, but that’s what art’s all about baby!
Being more educated on the topic now, I think there is a lot more I could add about inequality globally and the historical importance of all these pieces, but today that is not my message. Today, I wanted to reflect on an old idea to remind myself of my old feelings and my old brain. So much has changed, yet so much has stayed the same. I’m still a little corny writer, typing out my opinions on my MacBook while listening to music, instead of doing my homework.
