"Check the Rhime"

A Tribe Called Quest
(Jive, 1991)

Breeze-shooting back-and-forth so formalized ("Um, let me see. Damn, I can't remember. I'll receive the message, and you will play the sender.") that it feels utterly effortless, which is the key to the best hip-hop. A dreamy Minnie Riperton sample, some cranky horns on the chorus, and good jokes dependent almost entirely on the voices of Q-Tip and Phife (nasal and hoarse, respectively), so I won't write 'em down. Tribe's eventual falloff revealed that they'd always been walking the tightrope between mellow and solipsistic, but they were this good for so long we're lucky to have had 'em at all.

-- Alex Pappademas