Which hip hop group released the album 'Low End Theory' in 1991?

A Tribe Called Quest released The Low End Theory in 1991. The group’s second studio album fused jazz, bass-heavy grooves, inventive samples, and thoughtful rhymes into one of alternative hip hop’s defining records.

The album was released on September 24, 1991, by Jive Records. Q-Tip handled much of the production alongside DJ and producer Ali Shaheed Muhammad, creating a stripped-down sound built around drums, bass, and jazz textures. The record also gave Phife Dawg a larger vocal role, strengthening the back-and-forth chemistry that became central to the group’s identity.

The title refers both to low-end bass frequencies and to broader social ideas about the treatment of Black men. Songs such as “Check the Rhime,” “Scenario,” and “Jazz (We’ve Got)” became essential hip hop tracks. A common mix-up is identifying the album with another Native Tongues group: De La Soul and Gang Starr were contemporaries, but The Low End Theory belongs to A Tribe Called Quest.