Los Angeles is commonly said to home the second largest Mexican community in the world (after Mexico itself). According to Pew Research Center, in 2014, 45% of the Los Angeles area’s residents were Hispanic. 78.5% of the people in this population were Mexican. Reports from the ‘90s claim similar statistics.

The map below depicts the racial distribution in Los Angeles according to the 2010 U.S. Census. Each orange dot represent 25 Hispanic people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Los_Angeles#/media/File:Race_and_ethnicity_2010-Los_Angeles(5560490330).png

The “alright” vocal sample originates from a 1992 New Orleans bounce record by D.J. Jimi called “Bitches (Reply)”. Female rapper MC E, a relative of Jimi’s, performs the vocals on the song.

The sampling of “Bitches (Reply)” on “Bickenhead” can be attributed to the song “Chickenhead” by Project Pat, which popularized the use of the word “chickenhead” to describe women who perform fellatio.

“Bitches (Reply)” is deeply rooted in the Southern rap scene. Like the title suggests, the song is a response record to another one of Jimi’s songs, “Where They At”, which covers arguably the first ever bounce song.

Rapper MC Hammer was at the forefront of hip-hop in 1991 when “Check the Rhime” was released. He had just achieved massive crossover success with his album Please Hammer, Don’t Hurt ‘Em and its lead single “U Can’t Touch This” the year before.

The new-found fame led to MC Hammer’s casting in multiple TV commercials, including those for KFC and Pepsi, the contents of which Q-Tip based his lyrics on. In the former, Hammer proclaimed “Now that’s pop” after catching and eating a piece of KFC’s popcorn chicken, while the latter saw him professing “Proper!” atop a stage after his mojo returned when a fan offered him a drink of Pepsi.

Q-Tip’s lines are a depiction of the vast differences between hip hop and pop culture that once existed. While Tribe’s contemporaries like Redman, 3rd Bass, and RBL Posse were quick to take potshots at the crossover sensation, Tip has stated he was actually defending Hammer’s position in hip hop:

At the time people were calling hip hop music pop music and I was saying Hammer was a hip hop artist, he’s not pop. ‘Rap is not pop, if you call it that then stop’.

Regardless, Hammer didn’t take kindly to Tip’s lyrics on “Check the Rhime” and dissed the Tribe member when he acknowledged all the (assumed to be) cynics in the 1994 song “Break ‘Em Off Somethin’ Proper”. On the record, Hammer specifically rapped, “A Tribe Called Quest is a bad investment”, “Q-Tip couldn’t flow if he was a river” and that he was “gonna put [Q-Tip] on a hoe stroll”. Tip responded with 1996’s “Keeping It Moving”, Tribe’s neutrality statement amidst the East Coast–West Coast conflict, and he’s since explained the rivalry has been resolved.