A Tribe Called Quest "Electric Relaxation"

Album: Midnight Marauders (Jive; 1993)
Songwriters: Jonathan Davis, Ronnie Foster, Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Malik Taylor
R&B Peak Position: #38

"Relax yourself girl/ Please settle down..."

Two emcees smoothly trading off mack lines towards a dimepiece over a subdued soundtrack of mellow jazz-hop sonics might read a tad sleepy on paper, but "Electric Relaxation" is far from dull, absorbing the ears in a dry energy that crackles with the boundless imagination and artistry of a rap group that succeeded in their impressive stance against how hip hop was "supposed" to sound at the time.

Found on 1993's Midnight Marauders, the last of a supreme Tribe Called Quest LP triad, "Relaxation" showed that yes, even the male members of the bohemian rap sect shared an appreciation for booty-watching. Playfully performed in a lyrical tag team form atop a laidback, plucked-bass-dominant groove (mainly based off a sample of Ronnie Foster's "Mystic Brew"), horny young bucks Phife and Q Tip try to warm up an assorted array of eye candies into participating in their "only vice". Their approach is extremely audacious: "Honey check it out, you got me mesmerized/ With your black hair and your fat-ass thighs," rhymes Q in the opening line while Phife relates mother/son role-playing fantasies and his wish to "pound up the pootang until it stinks" in the backs of Jeeps. Unsurprisingly, the women at the opposite end of these 2 Live Crew-ish lines aren't so turned on and the gossip mill stirrings of the duo's bed-hopping adventures doesn't help matters.

But even if frat-boy pleas to "knock the boots like the group H-Town" aren't all that triumphant with the ladies, it helped make for one of the group's (and the genre's) best tracks ever. From the seamless way the two rappers pass the mic back-and-forth, to their flow's ever-pleasant conversational tone (cleverly taking the edge off some of the more...ahem...forward lyrics) to the way the simmering beat gently nudges it's way under your skin, "Eletric Relaxation" definitely lived up to the languid promises of it's title (Recent years has seen several artists (like Kanye West, Joe and Marco Polo) bite off it's magic).

Best Moment: "I like 'em brown, yellow, Puerto Rican or Haitian" (0:44)

Tribe Called Quest - Electric Relaxation
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DL: "Electric Relaxation" (YFH)