100 Best Albums
- 3 MAR 1989
- 23 Songs
- Art Official Intelligence: Mosaic Thump · 2000
- De La Soul Is Dead · 1991
- 3 Feet High and Rising · 1989
- Geography · 2018
- Stakes Is High · 1996
- 3 Feet High and Rising · 1989
- 3 Feet High and Rising · 1989
- Plastic Beach · 2010
- 3 Feet High and Rising · 1989
- Rocket Fuel (feat. De La Soul) - Single · 2019
Essential Albums
- On their fourth album, Stakes Is High, De La Soul provide the missing link between their unconventional attitude toward ’80s hip-hop and the upcoming revolution in ’90s “indie rap”—the idiosyncratic rappers like Black Star and Company Flow that took their ball and ran with it. It marked a moment where they could have just as easily fallen off—stakes were indeed high, and they subsequently moved away from Prince Paul’s screwball energy toward self-produced boom-bap and classically technical lyricism and punchlines. “I think when Paul was leaving, it was a little scary,” Trugoy the Dove told Apple Music in 2018. “The approach, being on our own, it was scary. It was the first time we invited that many outside producers into our space.” Yearning for the days when MCs were MCs, the album is rooted in the trio’s deserved mythology as rap veterans and an undying devotion to the genre’s tenets. Raps Posdnuos, “While you others represent, I present my rep.” Naturally, its incisive bars about bars would be sampled by a phalanx of artists (Beastie Boys, Gang Starr, Jeru the Damaja, Quasimoto, Deltron 3030) and provided many through lines to the independent rap of the late ’90s: one of the first recorded appearances of Mos Def (“Big Brother Beat”), a guest appearance from Common (“The Bizness”) and a beat (“Stakes Is High”) from a little-known producer who would ultimately call himself J Dilla and change the world with his loping, human production.
- De La Soul’s third album, 1993’s Buhloone Mindstate, is a totem of hip-hop self-expression, the oft-quoted line from “In the Woods”—“Fuck being hard, Posdnuos is complicated”—serving as something between poetic exhale and mission statement. Enjoying a sunrise after the darkness of De La Soul Is Dead, the trio (on their final album with Prince Paul behind the decks) revels in the freedoms of jazz music (Maceo Parker, Fred Wesley and Pee Wee Ellis all provide support) and a border-free worldview. (“Long Island Wildin’” features rappers Scha Dara Parr and Takagi Kan, who rap in their native Japanese.) In the year of gangsta rap’s pop triumph, De La maintain a speed limit on the road less travelled, staying true to themselves in an age of sellouts (“It might blow up, but it won’t go pop”) and crime-infatuated consumers (“I be the in ’cause the brother holdin’ Glocks is out/I be the in ’cause the pusher runnin’ blocks is out”). “I Am I Be” is a landmark moment of diaristic rap writing, where Posdnuos talks about label woes, rent troubles, racist America and the dissolution of the Native Tongues crew in one powerful, metaphor-filled verse.
- On their second album, 1991’s De La Soul Is Dead, the trio returned as jaded, wizened cranks: They were fed up with the Day-Glo hippie imagery surrounding their debut and the grind that came with its success but, mercifully, kept their senses of humour intact. “We weren’t killing the brand, but killing the potential fad that could turn around and kill us if we didn’t kill it first,” Trugoy the Dove told Apple Music in 2018. “What we struggled with in hip-hop at that time, everybody was concerned about being called a sellout and being careful about how you’re being presented and the manipulation of what labels are doing to help sell this thing.” With co-producer Prince Paul still in tow, they retained an idiosyncratic sample arsenal, this time flipping the clacking percussion of ’50s jazzer Brother Bones, the dreamy soft rock of Chicago, the smoky bass of Tom Waits records and the breezy listening of Serge Gainsbourg and Herb Alpert. The schizophrenic feel of their debut gave birth to a restless fever dream complete with everything from vivid portraits of life after fame (“Ring Ring Ring [Ha Ha Hey]”) to inscrutable interstitials (“Johnny’s Dead Aka Vincent Mason”), from giddy pop ecstasy (“A Roller Skating Jam Named ‘Saturdays’”) to a Genesis song flipped into a satirical metal blast (“Who Do U Worship?”). De La Soul Is Dead had room for “Millie Pulled a Pistol on Santa”, a child-abuse tale that’s one of the most searing reality raps of all time, as well as “Bitties in the BK Lounge”, a kazoo-filled rap battle set at the burger joint. This tangle of screams, skits, beat suites, sardonic hip-house and offbeat raps came with a litany of complaints—the requests of their record label, people who would try to fight them on tour, Arsenio Hall, Soul Train’s anti-rap bias, the industry’s move to R&B (“You mean rhythm & blues? No, rap and bullshit!”) and whoever stole Maseo’s Pathfinder. The psychedelic softies of 3 Feet High and Rising evolve into emotive truth-tellers. The album is not just an image-killer, but proof that there were no boundaries to their style, the first of the tireless crew’s many creative reboots.
Albums
- 2001
Artist Playlists
- One of hip-hop’s most influential groups—finally on streaming.
- Hear the samples that inspired the hip-hop legends.
- De La Soul’s Posdnuos and Maseo talk 35 years of 3 Feet High and Rising and their new radio show.
Live Albums
Appears On
Radio Shows
- De La Soul and special guests reflect on the history, legacy and impact of the iconic group.
- A seed that sprouted into a whole hip-hop family tree.
- Dave Chappelle and De La Soul connect hip-hop and comedy.
- Tyler, The Creator and Rapsody speak on De La’s impact.
- Common and Questlove discuss their creative processes.
- Prince Paul and Queen Latifah on De La’s origins.
- Posdnuos and Maseo on A.O.I. Radio and Dave’s legacy.
More To See
About De La Soul
When Long Island hip-hop trio De La Soul arrived in 1989 with their debut album, 3 Feet High and Rising, the group sounded like nothing else. The patchwork production and clever, goofy humour made them an inventive and gentle presence in a rap landscape largely defined by aggression. De La's output throughout the '90s was formative for hip-hop on the whole, with works like 1991's De La Soul Is Dead and 1996's Stakes Is High providing inspiration that entire generations of other artists would build on. After 2004's The Grind Date, the crew went on hiatus but returned in 2016 with the crowdfunded and the Anonymous Nobody.... In 2021, after years of legal battles over rights and ownership, De La were finally granted control of their masters in 2021. With control over their back catalogue, the members made plans to get their classic albums released on streaming services for the first time. But Trugoy the Dove died of congestive heart failure before that could happen. Weeks later, in March 2023, De La Soul's iconic releases were finally made available for streaming, a triumphant moment tinged with mourning.
- FROM
- Amityville, NY, United States
- FORMED
- 1987
- GENRE
- Hip-Hop/Rap