In Brief

* * * A Tribe Called Quest, “Midnight Marauders,” Jive. “Marauders” gets under your skin as if by osmosis, as rappers Q-Tip and Phife Dog lull you into their cool world with laid-back rhyme flows and even more languid beats. In an era when gats are becoming as trendy an accessory as beepers, ending one song with the pager operator’s voice saying, “You’re not any less of a man if you don’t pull the trigger” shows that this Tribe clearly marches to its own beat.

New albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent).