Short answers, pulled from the story.
The official core members of the Native Tongues were the Jungle Brothers, De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, Monie Love, Queen Latifah, Black Sheep, and Chi-Ali. Honorary members included the Beatnuts, Brand Nubian, Leaders of the New School, Mos Def, Common, J Dilla, the Pharcyde, and others, as defined by a 2020 Vulture article.
The Native Tongues took their name from a lyric in the song "African Cry" by New Birth, a Motown-offshoot funk group. The lyric reads "took away our native tongues," and the phrase became the banner for the collective.
The collective began when De La Soul and the Jungle Brothers connected at a show in Boston and then collaborated on the track "Buddy." A Tribe Called Quest joined after Afrika Baby Bam of the Jungle Brothers called Q-Tip late one night to insist he meet De La Soul. DJ Kool Red Alert helped foster the Jungle Brothers' early success, which opened the path for De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest to rise together.
The Native Tongues were known for positive-minded, Afrocentric lyrics and for pioneering eclectic sampling and jazz-influenced beats. Their approach stood apart from harder, more confrontational hip-hop styles of the same era.
The Native Tongues influenced a wide range of later alternative hip-hop artists, including Kanye West, Outkast, the Roots, Lupe Fiasco, Lauryn Hill, MF Doom, Pharrell Williams, Common, Black Star, J Dilla, Dead Prez, Digable Planets, Little Brother, and Jurassic 5, among others.
Rolling Stone cites "Doin' Our Own Dang" as the definitive Native Tongues posse cut, the track that best represented the collective performing together on record.
The groups grew distant over time, and by 1993 De La Soul's Trugoy the Dove declared "That native shit is dead," marking the effective end of the collective. The groups had never recorded under the Native Tongues name as a unified act, and notable crew collaborations were few even during the collective's active years.