Truth2Power: A Tribe Called Quest - "The unit, yes, the unit, yes, the unit called the jazz is"

Artist: A Tribe Called Quest Song: Excursions Released: September 24, 1991

Lyric:

The unit, yes, the unit, yes, the unit called the jazz is

Context (via Genius):

Before The Low End Theory in 1991, popular jazz was mainly smooth jazz, with artists like Kenny G , known for his 1986 album, Duotones. Muhammad discusses how

here we come sampling the era and the period that was, for us, very progressive and it pretty much defined the…how should I say this… it defined the good conscious and the bad conscious of a person but put it to music. You know like, the mid to late 60s and early 70s period of jazz was really mean, and I think a lot of it had to do with the struggle,and I think a lot of it had to do with the struggle, the civil rights movement, drugs, you know all these things… free love, and really taking a departure from that period of jazz that came before. Jazz musicians were really breaking off from sticking behind one strong front person and beginning to find their own voices, and individualities and it was a really rebellious things to do. So that period of jazz is what we gravitated toward and we just felt it. And by reintroducing it, but in our own way and adding our own little twist, I think it brought a greater interest back and what ultimately had come from that was this next generation of jazz musicians who grew up on hip hop, who also grew up listening to jazz.

Essentially Tribe was renowned for marrying jazz and hip-hop. While their were a couple of others sampling jazz at the time, Muhammad states

the way that we delivered it was in such a way that had not really been done… in that capacity, in that manner, in that sound.

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