A rap group and not a terribly innovative one. Give me Run DMC any day! These guys suck.
I get plenty of e-mail from people who seem to be unable to handle opinions contrary to their own. Their letters were automatically given the treatment they deserved (actually they're put up on my wall and we all laugh at them). One of the more reasoned letters I got explained to me why they thought A Tribe Called Quest was good, and asked me to expand more on why I don't like them. The answer is that I simply didn't. I listened to Midnight Marauders over half-a-dozen times and at the end of it, I had an immense dislike for the music of the band (it could be the syncopation, though I am big fan of syncopated music). It's how I felt, and there's little in the world that can change that. If you wish, take a look at the hundreds of other reviews I've done---the problem here wasn't a bad recording, or a bad performance, or bad songwriting. Listening to the album annoyed me. There are very very few albums (less than 0.01% of all albums I've heard) that I react to in this manner, but Midnight Marauders happens to be one of them.
However, I am not against rap or hip-hop in general, as some people have assumed. My rap interests include Run DMC (obviously), Coolio, L. L. Cool J., Tone Loc, TLC, Public Enemy, Digable Planets, Ice-T, Ice Cube, Salt-n-Pepa, Sir Mix-A-Lot, Grand Master Flash, Sugar Hill Gang, DMX, Ol' Dirty Bastard, etc. (And note the range: I'm not against anyone for being "mainstream" or "underground" or whatever---if I like it, I like it; I don't care if it's Vincent Price rapping on Thriller.) While I listen to rap (and country) in passing, I own or have owned records (in vinyl or tape) by all these artists. It is only A Tribe Called Quest that I didn't like.