San Francisco’s YBCA announced that it will honor A Tribe Called Quest’s famous album Midnight Marauders. The nonprofit Undercover Presents is responsible for the three-concert event that will take place at the YBCA forum in San Francisco on May 16th to 18th.

At the event, Phife Dawg’s family will be receiving a special honor. The late rapper passed away in 2016 but is survived by other members of A Tribe Called Quest. Additionally, the collective is planning on bringing Jarobi White of A Tribe Called Quest to the event for a special record signing.

The event will feature 100+ bay area music artists including Lateef the Truthspeaker, Gift of Gab, and Karega of Sol Development. The show will also feature the GRAMMY nominated music producer Starita who has worked on a number of latin works and is a prominent figure in the bay area music scene. Additionally, the show will incorporate the four pillars of hip hop into its production which include DJing, MCing, graffiti, and breakdancing, and will include jazz improvisation as a bonus. YBCA and Undercover are encouraging individuals who attend to think about the ways in which hip hop has the capacity to bring communities together.

To give some background on the influential album that inspired this event, Midnight Marauders was created by A Tribe Called Quest back back in 1993 during the peak of 90s hip hop. The album features musical themes of modern jazz that are mixed well over classic 90s beats. There’s also an element of quirkiness to the tracks off the album which is exemplified in songs like “Electric Relaxation” where there’s a noticeably long silence in the song followed by a latin swing groove. Additionally, there exists a kind of guide in the song who comes and goes during the course of the album and is presumably the “midnight marauder.” The album’s positioning is interesting as it is musically easy to listen to and calming, yet lyrically it deals with emotionally charged issues such as police harassment against Black folks, use of the n-word amongst the Black community, and injustices against Black activists.

A Tribe Called Quest formed in 1985 in New York and was integral in influencing the alternative hip hop scene of the 90s. Their first album The Low End Theory is known for its successful integration of jazz and rap; a concept that shaped the classic and identifiable beats of 90s hip hop. The members consisted of MC Q-Tip, MC Phife Dawg, DJ Ali Shaheed Muhammad, and MC Jarobi White. Over the course of their 13 year long career, the group released six studio albums. Their final album We Got it From Here… Thank You 4 Your Service was released in 2016 when the band reunited for a brief stint. Most recently the band released a video for their song “The Space Program.”

The YBCA event will be a fantastic way to bring the Bay Area community together and to exemplify its diverse music artists. Information about tickets can be found here.