When I go back to the early 90s, I remember the music I was listening to at the time more than the actual memories from my life. In 1990 I was only 10 years old and in that impressionable time of growing up, it was the always the music that moved me most. And when I had certain cassette tapes in my hands, pressing play on my portable cassette player took me on journeys in my headphones I had never been on before. My older brother Todd’s collection of cassettes was my only source of music to listen to so when I opened that old empty shoebox full of cassettes from under his bed, it was always a choose your own adventure type of experience for me. So in the early 90s as an 11 or 12 year old, I had no idea what was about to happen to me when I grabbed that cassette for the first time.
Artwork on cassette tape was the first chance to get my attention about what could be the potential vibe on that album. This front album artwork from this cassette had a drawing on it that was simple yet so cool. The writing was so cool and I loved the logo that had these little guys on there that made me smile. The black background contrast with the red and green stood out to me too. The cassette case had the words The Low End Theory sketched out on it as the most notable but then also a somewhat faint, A Tribe Called Quest written out in a circle. I sat in my brother’s room next to his bed where I stared at this cassette for awhile just admiring it. But then I put the shoebox top back on the shoebox and slid it back under my brother’s bed. Then I walked about 13 feet to my bedroom, shut the door, and grabbed my portable cassette player and my headphones so I could listen to this cassette for the first time.
I opened that cassette case so carefully because my brother would beat my ass if he knew I was digging in his collection. I needed to leave no fingerprints on that cassette or his shoebox full of tapes. I pulled that silver cassette tape out of the case and put it into my Sony Walkman and pressed rewind on Side: A. Yes, I pressed rewind. It’s funny that kids nowadays literally have no idea about rewinding a cassette. These types of mindful experiences with physical music were good for our lives. I truly believe that. I pressed rewind on this cassette tape from my brother’s collection and used the time to look at the booklet of the cassette aka the j-card. I had no idea who A Tribe Called Quest was back then but I quickly saw the 3 artists looking all cool with amazing lighting rocking baseball hats just like me. That cassette tape clicked letting me know the rewinding was done and now I could press play.
I made sure my over the ear foam headphones were positioned right on my head right over my baseball hat. There was always around 5 seconds of blank space before an album officially began and those first sounds from an album were so important for whether or not you would keep listening. I held this cassette tape case in my hand and closed my eyes while I laid on my bed without a care in the world. No real life responsibilities. Just sports and music and video games with some elementary school sprinkled in. But then this rumbling from the beat came through my headphones and The Low End Theory began. I was instantly nodding my head when the rapping was started. I didn’t know the rapper… I didn’t know what was coming… But this emcee’s voice was the best thing my young ears had ever heard. The track was called “Excursions” and I knew this because I looked at song 1 on side A and it said what I needed to know. Holding the artwork for an album while I listened to music was always so cool to me.
As this cassette played, I didn’t skip any songs. Time was money back in the early 90s and listening to an album from front to back was the way I listened to cassettes. I feel it’s the way most people listened to music back then too. We didn’t have the access to every album imaginable like kids have today with streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music. You weren’t distracted. You had one cassette you committed to and unless you had made a curated mixtape of your favorite tracks, you were listening to an album the way an artist intended. From the first track to the last track. From the beginning of side A all the way to side B. You weren’t looking at a phone and doing 98 other things while you listened to music. You just legit listened to music. I loved that.
It was truly a vibe and when tracks like “Vibes and Stuff” came on it reminded me a bit of the Jazz music my pops listened to but it was much different than that. I didn’t know these emcees. I didn’t know the producer(s). I didn’t know anything about A Tribe Called Quest except for a couple of pictures in this cassette booklet, their shout outs written out, and the actual track list jotted down… and oh yeah… THAT ARTWORK! I just knew that when I listened to this cassette for the first time, it resonated with me. When I looked at this album artwork, it struck a nerve with me that it was tied to this beautiful piece of music on that tiny silver cassette tape. This was the earliest art form I had encountered as a youngster and it spoke to me in a way that nothing else could.
Songs like “Check the Rhyme,” “Verses from the Abstract,” “Jazz (We’ve Got),” “Butter,” “What?,” “Excursions,” and “Scenario” along with EVERY every track from that album fit together like a puzzle to me. All of those songs were connected in such a beautiful way to that artwork and a memory in my mind. That’s what music was to me back then. Cassettes like The Low End Theory formed core memories in my mind from an early age. They shaped what I knew about the world. They taught me about culture. They introduced me to originality. They showed me that being different could be cool. These are all things that have stayed with me my whole life and who knew that some 35+ years later they would still be so important in my life. I feel that some of these albums from the 90s are truly the modern version of what fine art was before us and that’s why I treasure these cassettes so much. Do you look at music this way or am I just a weirdo? What cassettes stick with you the way The Low End Theory has for me?
We haven’t even gotten to the videos yet??? I can’t sign off on this article without dropping some videos from A Tribe Called Quest from the album. I would see these videos on Yo! MTV Raps in the early 90s and they were often my first time I would hear and see an artist. I would have that VHS timed on Saturday mornings to record Yo! while I was playing Little League so when I got home, I could sit next to that VCR and have the volume on the TV so low so my parents could barely hear what I was listening to and watching. These videos and the performances and interviews from the artists to promote their albums was everything to me. Let’s take a trip back through time on this content right here… Does this hit you like it hits me?