Native Tongues is a legendary hip hop collective crew, which had a supersized influence on later artists, but in actuality had limited full-length releases, despite their cultural popularity. The first actual full-length album dropped by anybody Native Tongues was Straight out the Jungle, by The Jungle Brothers, officially released by Warlock Records on November 8, 1988. It didn’t sell a ton of records, had a pretty rough sound quality compared to major label releases of the time, but still stands as a legendary release.
February 2 of the following year, De La Soul would drop 3 Feet High and Rising, a collaborative effort with producer extraordinaire, Prince Paul, which came out on Tommy Boy Records. It immediately took off, and was certified gold (500,000 units sold) by the end of May. I bought a bootleg copy of it at a truck stop on 360 near Keysville, Virginia, so it obviously moved more than RIAA knew. The “Me, Myself & I” single went gold as well, on DJ Screw day (June 27th, but in the decade before anybody would know who DJ Screw was).
November 7 of 1989, the next two Native Tongues releases would drop on the same day, with the Jungle Brothers’ second album, Done by the Forces of Nature, coming out on Warner Brothers, them having made enough noise to get signed (and getting a little bit of a push from Kool DJ Red Alert, who executive produced the album). And Tommy Boy released Queen Latifah’s All Hail the Queen the same day, the first woman MC representing Native Tongues crew, with both albums getting the aesthetic crew push of De La’s wave of popularity. Both did decent within the conscious hip hop head community, but didn’t break out to bigger mainstream success.
On April 10, 1990, A Tribe Called Quest dropped their debut, People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm, on Jive Records. Following in the clever conscious playful rebellious nature of their Native Tongues comrades, ATCQ’s first album was an immediate critical success, though the mainstream sales did not immediately follow. On October 30 of 1990, Monie Love became the second Native Tongues female act to debut, with her dropping Down to Earth, on the same Warner Brothers label that had signed the Jungle Brothers. (This one featured some of the earliest production credits of Native Tongues’ associates and honorary members, The Beatnuts.) It, however, did not blow up with the normals (though “Monie In the Middle” remains an all-time banger, and features sample interpolations from songs by Coke Escovedo and salsa superstar Willie Colon, likely showing that early Beatnuts fingerprint on the beat behind the scenes).
A full two years after their debut blew up, on May 14, 1991, De La dropped De La Soul is Dead, again working with Prince Paul, which was owned in a corporate structure that now included both Tommy Boy and Warner Brothers Records. It stayed offbeat compared to mainstream rap, but was a bit darker and heavier than regular folks wanted. They still wanted that old happy ass De La (and still do, to this day, actually). Within two months though, it was certified gold (500,000 units sold) as well.
The fall of 1991 saw three more Native Tongues albums come out. First up, on September 3, was Queen Latifah’s sophomore release, Nature of a Sista’, still on Tommy Boy. All Hail the Queen had almost gone gold (it still sits somewhere in the upper 400 thousands of units sold, so it might get that gold certification if “Ladies First” ever goes viral or gets used prominently in a movie), but the second album only moved about half as much as the first.
September 24, A Tribe Called Quest dropped their sophomore effort, The Low End Theory, still on Jive, which got the ultra elusive 5 Mic rating from The Source. And while it didn’t blow up immediately with the mainstream masses, it was a solid hip hop hit, with a couple standout singles, “Check the Rhime” and “Scenario”. Native Tongues had few posse songs, with “Buddy” off De La’s first album being the notable exception. “Scenario” was another, featuring Leaders of the New School, who – thought not considered full members of Native Tongues – were always associates, and dropped their own first album the July before.
October 22, Black Sheep dropped A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing, considered full-fledged Native Tongues members, on Mercury Records. I was in my first fall semester at VCU, so copped the tape of this at the old Mister Music store on Grace Street (next to where would eventually become Ipanema). I hadn’t yet discovered the wonderfulness of Willie’s downtown yet, so was still learning to expand my circles around Richmond. Black Sheep had Q-Tip on one track, and the kid member of Native Tongue, Chi-Ali, on another. He was next in line anyways.
1992 started strong for Native Tongues. The Low End Theory was certified gold in February, and A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing followed suit in April. In between, on March 24, Chi-Ali dropped The Fabulous Chi-Ali, on Relativity Records, with much of production done by The Beatnuts. The widest reaching posse cut to that point came out on that album, “Let the Horns Blow”, which had Chi Ali, Dres from Black Sheep, Trugoy from De La, Phife Dawg from ATCQ, and Fashion who would eventually be with The Beatnuts. (Actually, the real takeaway from Chi-Ali probably was The Beatnuts getting signed to Relativity as well, and recording their underground classic Intoxicated Demons EP in the months after Chi-Ali’s release came out.)
The crew put nothing else out in 1992, and then Bill Clinton was elected, and the progressive racist Southerner contingent, as led by James Carville, pushed for the suppression of conscious hip hop at Bohemian Grove’s Winter Solstice Bacchanalia towards the end of 1992. And nothing was ever the same, nor as simple. Queen Latifah eventually became a movie star, and Busta Rhymes of Leaders of the New School got a prominent Illuminati push later in the ‘90s, because his delivery style allowed for subliminal layering of suggestive phrases within the song, doubled up by visual triggers in Hype Williams videos. The Low End Theory would become the first Native Tongues release to be certified platinum (a million units sold), in February of 1995. People’s Instinctive… got certified gold the following January. And 3 Feet High and Rising went official platinum in April of 2000, after the Clinton cartel was tagging back out to the Bush cartel to continue the globalization of the American empire through a more militant push, justified by knocking down the twin towers. Chi-Ali ended up in prison for manslaughtering a dude (legally speaking, he was not convicted of murder). And in September of 2021, as Native Tongues had long since rolled through progressive white consciousness, NPR rolled out some nostalgic accolades, which helped push both “Scenario” and “Check the Rhime” to gold status with the RIAA.
But before it all fell apart, before the internal drama of ATCQ, and the record label drama De La Soul felt, to where they now own their own music but it’s released in a different form than it originally artistically was (due to the intellectual property rights holders of some of the samples), before that prescient line in “Check the Rhime” where Q-Tip lays out, “Industry rule number four thousand and eighty / record company people are shady,” there was that first release, way back in 1988. Straight out the Jungle.
And the first song on that was a song of the same title, with both Afrika Baby Bam and Mike Gee dropping a verse, before a recollecting via vocal sample of those classic Melle Mel lines from “The Message” half a decade earlier in time, but decades ago in terms of hip hop aesthetics. “It’s like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder, how I keep from going under,” four times over, and that third verse which lays out the times we still seem to be living in. “The animals and cannibals will do you in. Cut your throat (echo), stab you in the back… the untamed animal just don’t know how to act. It’s unbelievable (echo), uncivilized (echo), and now I’m starting to realize, danger in the jungle, the jungle means danger (echo), tension intense, hearts filled with anger (echo).” This remains the foundational track for the movement, before the bigger record deals came along, before every kid in America started wearing African medallions (including white kids), before truck stops in rural America were bootlegging their releases, with a raw, poorly mastered sound… and there’s something to that phrase. Once you are looped in with the Yakubian bean counters, you become far more mastered. The Jungle Brothers came straight out the jungle, raw as fuck, and this – to me – remains the most Native Tongues track possibly ever made. I hope to play it at Bill Clinton’s grave while I’m pissing on it at some point before I myself die.
