Culture is released

Why it matters

Culture came out January 27, 2017, on Quality Control/300/Atlantic. Migos was the trio of Quavo, Offset, and Takeoff, three cousins from Lawrenceville, Georgia, who had been releasing trap mixtapes since 2011. Culture is their second studio album. It debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 and was the album that consolidated the triplet-flow style as the dominant rap-vocal pattern of the late 2010s. The album's central conceit is the triplet flow: a rhythmic pattern where three syllables fit into one beat, popularized by trap MCs through the early 2010s but most cleanly executed at scale by Migos across this album. "Bad and Boujee" (with Lil Uzi Vert) was the lead single and went to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. "T-Shirt," "Slippery" with Gucci Mane, "Call Casting." The Migos triplet-flow became the dominant cadence in commercial rap for the better part of three years; almost every major-label rap single between 2017 and 2019 deploys some version of it. You can hear the influence in records by people who have never met Migos. Takeoff was murdered in 2022, which ended the group as a recording entity. The catalog the three of them made together is the catalog. Culture is the high point.