"Check the Rhime" was the first single from A Tribe Called Quest's second album The Low End Theory. It is one of the group's most famous songs and is well known for lines such as Q-Tip's "Industry rule #4,080: Record company people are shady". The Beastie Boys have a similar lyric in their song "In a World Gone Mad" rapping "Citizen rule number 2080/Politicians are shady". In 2008, it was ranked number 29 on VH1's 100 Greatest Songs of Hip Hop.
The music video starts out in front of houses and moves to a cleaners store where the group performs on the roof, in Queens, New York in front of a large crowd.