Straight out the Jungle

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Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[2]
The Guardian	[3]
Mojo	[4]
NME	9/10[5]
The Philadelphia Inquirer	[6]
Record Collector	[7]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[8]
The Source	[9]
Spin Alternative Record Guide	9/10[10]
The Village Voice	A−[11]

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The Los Angeles Times noted that, "From romance to racism, the JB's tell it like it is with a charismatic and suave funkiness."^[12] Trouser Press concluded that "despite strong entries like 'Because I Got It Like That' and 'Sounds of the Safari', several duff tracks diminish the album, while the vestigial old-school beats and rapping style leave the rest sounding dated."^[13]

In 1998, Straight out the Jungle was selected as one of The Source's "100 Best Albums".^[14] In 2022, Rolling Stone placed it at number 116 on their list of the "200 Greatest Hip-Hop Albums of All Time". The magazine's writer Christopher R. Weingarten said, "[T]he inaugural volley from the Native Tongues collective, the debut from the Jungle Brothers was a playful, loose, try-anything album that machete'd its own path."^[15] In 2025, Pitchfork placed it at number 71 on their list of the "100 Best Rap Albums of All Time". The website's writer Philip Sherburne said that the album's "funk breaks, rainforest sound effects, and call-and-response rapping established the sampledelic baseline for future Native Tongues classics from De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest".^[16]