A Tribe Called Quest - Midnight Marauders [Limited Edition, Yellow] (LP) Vinyl

Midnight Marauders is the third studio album by the American hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest, released on 9 November 1993 by Jive Records. It follows People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm (1990) and The Low End Theory (1991), and is widely held to be the point at which the group's jazz-leaning sound and its two-man lyrical interplay arrived fully formed.

The Album

Credited on the record to A Tribe Called Quest, the production was handled primarily by Q-Tip, with contributions from Skeff Anselm, Large Professor and the group's DJ, Ali Shaheed Muhammad. The album returns to the eclectic sampling of the group's earliest work, drawing mainly on 1970s jazz, funk, soul and R&B, and lands grittier and funkier than The Low End Theory. Q-Tip varied the drum frequencies from song to song, so the beats shift weight across the record rather than sitting at one level, and the album drew particular praise for its horn hooks. Lyrically, Q-Tip and Phife Dawg trade lines with a chemistry so close that they swapped each other's written verses when recording "Electric Relaxation". Three singles were taken from the album: "Award Tour", "Electric Relaxation" and "Oh My God".

Recording

Much of the album was planned in the basement of Phife Dawg's grandmother's house, where Q-Tip had set up his production equipment. Sessions then ran for roughly nine months, ending in September 1993, at Battery Studios, Platinum Island and Sorcerer Sound in New York City. Everything was mixed at Battery Studios and mastered by Tom Coyne at The Hit Factory, New York. Raphael Wiggins, later known as Raphael Saadiq, played bass guitar on "Midnight", and Busta Rhymes, Trugoy the Dove, Large Professor and Consequence appear as guests elsewhere on the record.

Cover Artwork

The sleeve places a woman painted in Afrocentric colours against a grid of headphone-wearing faces, the whole thing framed by a border of clocks. A reported 71 hip-hop artists and radio DJs appear across the front and back covers, among them Grandmaster Flash, Afrika Bambaataa, Beastie Boys, De La Soul, MC Lyte and Busta Rhymes, which makes the packaging a snapshot of the era as much as an album cover.

This Pressing

This is the 2025 limited edition reissue on a single 12 inch LP pressed on yellow coloured vinyl, issued on Jive through Sony Music Entertainment UK under catalogue number 19802918821 and made in the EU. The fourteen tracks run seven to a side, numbered Side 1 and Side 2 on the rear sleeve and given the group's own wording on the record labels, "That Side" and "This Side". The front sleeve carries a yellow coloured vinyl hype sticker.

Reception

Midnight Marauders reached number eight on the Billboard 200 and number one on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, and was certified platinum by the RIAA in January 1995. Vibe called it "a rap classic" and NME described it as the group's "most complete work to date". In 2020 Rolling Stone placed it at number 201 on its revised list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. It is regularly credited with helping to establish a second golden age of hip-hop, and is treated as the high point of the Native Tongues movement.

Track Listing

Side A (That Side)
1. Midnight Marauders Tour Guide
2. Steve Biko (Stir It Up)
3. Award Tour
4. 8 Million Stories
5. Sucka N***a
6. Midnight
7. We Can Get Down

Side B (This Side)
1. Electric Relaxation
2. Clap Your Hands
3. Oh My God
4. Keep It Rollin'
5. The Chase, Part II
6. Lyrics To Go
7. God Lives Through