FEATURE:
Childhood Treasures: Albums That Impacted Me
De La Soul - 3 Feet High and Rising
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THIS is another album that…
PHOTO CREDIT: Ebet Roberts/Redferns
I have featured before that I am revisiting now. Whereas before I have discussed the impact and importance of De La Soul’s debut album, 3 Feet High and Rising, on the wider world, today, this is very much about its personal relevance. Most albums I can include in features so that you can listen to it. That is not the case with 3 Feet High and Rising. Owing to a contractual stipulation implemented years ago, De La Soul’s music has not been available on streaming sites. There is some good news for fans of the New York Hip-Hop trio. As we can see here, their music is back in their hands:
“De La Soul are back in control of their master recordings. Or so says Talib Kweli, who wrote in an Instagram post yesterday that he’d been told about this development by De La Soul member Maseo.
Kweli wrote: “Ladies and gentlemen, I spoke to Maseo from the legendary De La Soul today and it’s official… after years of being taken advantage [of] by the recording industry in the worst possible ways, De La Soul now owns all the rights to their masters and is in full control of the amazing music they have created”.
“Let’s salute Plugs 1, 2 and 3”, he added, “for sticking to their guns and showing us that we can all beat the system if we come together as a community. Let’s hear it for black ownership of black art! Congratulations fellas”.
The news follows the recent acquisition by Reservoir of the label that released most of De La Soul’s albums, that being Tommy Boy. At the time, many people wondered whether that deal could bring to an end the long running dispute between De La Soul and Tommy Boy which has meant that the group’s classic albums have been unavailable on the streaming services.
Following the deal, a rep for Reservoir told Variety: “We have already reached out to De La Soul and will work together to the bring the catalogue and the music back to the fans”. Meanwhile a post on the De La Soul Instagram around the same time read “woke up feeling a greater sense of peace of mind”.
It is good that such an iconic album might be available on streaming platforms soon. 3 Feet High and Rising was an album I remember coming to not long after it was released. Maybe it was the early-1990s. Before this, I had heard Hip-Hop and was aware of groups like Beastie Boys and Public Enemy. It seemed that New York in the 1980s was fostering so many hugely strong and vital bands who were taking Hip-Hop to the masses.
Some did criticise De La Soul, as 3 Feet High and Rising is flower power. It is a Daisy Age release that is more about jokes and the lighter side of life, as opposed political concerns, corruption and the experience of the Black community (although they do touch on that). Whereas diehard Hip-Hop fans and certain groups disliked their less-than-serious approach, most others have seen the genius of 1989’s 3 Feet High and Rising. One can compare De La Soul with Beastie Boys, in the sense that they blend myriad samples with songs that are witty and have an infectious charm. I am going to quote a couple of reviews for 3 Feet High and Rising, just to give a sense of what critics made of this debut masterpiece. As opposed some of the Pop and other styles of the 1980s, Hip-Hop has remained so relevant and fresh. One can listen to albums like 3 Feet High and Rising. One can get a perspective of the time in which it was made, though there is that sense of timelessness. Songs like Eye Know, The Magic Number and Buddy are classics. Throw into that mix Me Myself and I! Posdnuos, Trugoy and Maseo are so compelling and tight throughout the album. Writing alongside producer Prince Paul, we get a wonderful array of sounds and samples through the twenty-four tracks. It is quite hard to find 3 Feet High and Rising on vinyl. For that reason, many will welcome its arrival on streaming platforms soon!
Classic Album Sundays provided a detailed backstory and dive into a seismic Hip-Hop release. There are so many interesting revelations and interpretations:
“Formed in the Amityvile area of Long Island, New York in 1988, De La Soul consists of Kelvin Mercer aka Posdnuos aka Plug One, Dave Jolicoeur aka Trugoy aka Plug Two and Vincent Mason aka Maseo aka Plug Three. The three formed the group known as De La Soul, directly translating to From The Soul, in high school and quickly caught the attention of producer Prince Paul with a demo tape of the song “Plug Tunin'”.
The group’s Long Island roots may help explain their unique, quirky, spacious and eclectic perspective. Once removed from the hustle of New York City, but close enough to be well familiar with the roots of hip hop culture and music, De La Soul expresses a side of the black hip-hop experience that may benefit from, and also be a benefit to, the space and distance they enjoyed to truly digest, re-interpret and create an evolutionary hip-hop sound based on playful wordplay, innovative sampling and, of course, their trademark wisdom laid out over positive and soulful grooves.
Despite their youthful exuberance and expression, moving through 3 Feet High and Rising quickly reveal that De La Soul possesses a wisdom and sensibility beyond their years. Perhaps this sensibility in no better expressed that through the consistent themes of love and respect for women, an issue that had until this time and continues to pervade hip-hop.
IN THIS PHOTO: De La Soul in Long Island, New York in 1989/PHOTO CREDIT: Janette Beckman
Over a brilliantly wholesome musical composition that uses Steely Dan’s “Peg” and The Mad Lads “Make This Young Lady Mine” as a backbone, De La Soul offers an earnest and sincere love song aimed at wooing a target of their affection. Posdnuos summarizes his proposal, rapping “It’s I again and the song that I send / Is taking steps to reach your heart /Any moment you feel alone /I can fill up your empty part”.
Don’t get it twisted. De La Soul knows how to have a good time. And “Buddy” is one of the best examples of a De La track that shows the unbridled fun and camaraderie that De La Soul helped birth alongside their Native Tongues brethren.
Paraphrasing Angie Martinez from the 2011 A Tribe Called Quest documentary “Beats, Rhymes & Life”, Native Tongues was never about “Fight the Power” or “Fuck the Police”… we had other groups for that… Native Tongues was about expression and upliftment using the best tool out there: fun.
The Native Tongues is a collective of late 1980s and early 1990s hip-hop artists known for their positive-minded, good-natured Afrocentric lyrics, and for pioneering the use of eclectic sampling and later jazz-influenced beats. Its principal members are the Jungle Brothers, De La Soul, and A Tribe Called Quest. Built on the foundation of likeminded youngsters and support from hip-hop veterans DJ Red Alert, Afrika Bambaata and Prince Paul, Native Tongues stormed the gates of hip-hop in the late 80’s and early 90’s, with Jungle Brothers being the first to hit.
But next to hit was De La Soul. On 3 Feet High and Rising crew cut “Buddy”, De La layered samples from Commodores and Bo Diddley to create an era-defining party track with an accompanying music video featuring the entire posse. With contributions from the members of Jungle Brothers, Queen Latifah, Monie Love and Q-Tip, Posdnuos sums it up, rapping “Now when Tribe, the Jungle, and De La Soul / Is at the clubs our ritual unfolds / Grab our bones and start swingin’ our hands / Then Jenny starts flockin’ everywhere)”.
It’s likely no coincidence that De La Soul wraps up 3 Feet High and Rising with a simple message over a simple beat. The term D.A.I.S.Y. Age was coined by De La Soul: it stands for ‘DA Inner Sound Y’all’. This Daisy Age references and pays homage to the flower children of the 1960’s who pushed for social change while re-interpreting the ideas of social awareness and activism for a new age. As one observer has written, “at a time when we had bands such as Public Enemy and N.W.A. penning these fired-up, political and vastly important songs, there was a movement emerging that took a more peace-and-love, pacifist approach; the need for us all to come together and create some love.” THIS is De La Soul’s legacy. More than legacy, it is their live that they live and share with us through their art.
Peace, love, justice, equality, fun, togetherness, self-expression and self-worth. Yep, De La Soul gave us the blueprint, assembly instructions included. And if we’re following De La’s blueprint, let’s all take a look at their May 27th, 2020 post on what we should be doing and thinking right now”.
I will end with snippets from Pitchfork’s extensive and fascinating investigation of 3 Feet High and Rising from 2018. Alongside the brilliance and innovation through the album, the trio received backlash and could not have anticipated the sort of reaction some gave them:
“While he was still in high school in 1984, Prince Paul had been recruited into the Brooklyn crew, Stetsasonic, to serve as their showcase DJ. Stet sold itself as the first hip-hop band, a live act with studio chops, even predating the Roots. But as the scene evolved away from Old School showpeople toward New School bedroom lyricists and producers, Stetsasonic changed its style. Their 1988 album In Full Gear offered one path forward for hip-hop: a slick, high-def sound. Paul had become a key member of the production team, but he felt under-credited, and he also knew that the New York sound was shifting toward dusty sampler aesthetics. (Polish and sheen would not return to the forefront until Dr. Dre’s 1992 debut The Chronic.) He felt creatively stifled.
At the same time, Posdnous, Trugoy, and Mase were putting together “Plug Tunin’,” a song that had evolved out of a live routine the crew rocked over the “Impeach the President” break. But then Pos pulled from his father’s collection a rare doo-wop record by the Invitations called “Written on the Wall.” (Later, Tommy Boy stirred a small frenzy among the nascent crate-digging community when it offered $500 to the first person who could identify the sample. The prize went unclaimed for a long while, firmly establishing De La Soul and Prince Paul as beat-diggers par excellence.)
In the Long Island tradition of leaving no record unturned, “Written on the Wall” was on the B-side. Printed on the flip were helpful instructions for radio DJs needing to know what to play: “Plug Side.” From this odd detail, De La Soul developed an album concept: They were transmitting their music live from Mars through microphones—Pos on Plug One, Trugoy on Plug Two. It was an audacious step away from both Old School party-rocking and New School realism. Their lyrics didn’t lean too heavily on Five-Percenter cosmology or Afrocentric ideology for conceptual depth. They were striving for their own new rap language.
Armed with this obscure 45, a cassette deck, and a lo-fi Casio RZ-1, the crew slowed the routine to a toddler crawl and recorded it. They rocked head-scratching metaphors (Plug One: “Dazed at the sight of a method/Dive beneath the depth of a never-ending verse”) and odd riddles (Plug Two: “Vocal in doubt is an uplift/And real is the answer that I answer with”) in neatly matched cadences. When Paul heard the hissy demo, he knew he had found kin. He took them to re-record “Plug Tunin’” at the hip-hop hotspot, Calliope Studios, and they were on their way. Tommy Boy signed them to an album contract soon after and De La Soul began building their sonic world on a shoestring budget of $25,000. Over a two-month period, they learned how to work the expensive studio gear as they made the record.
The Black suburban imagination of Long Island rappers offered a distinctive kind of street romance and horror. Public Enemy rapped about cruising the boulevards in muscle cars, their adrenaline amping up their politics of provocation. De La Soul’s second single, “Potholes In My Lawn,” was a battle rhyme refracted through the brutal status consciousness of the ‘burbs. De La played the family on the block coming into success, only to be met with the envious rage of the Joneses next door. Trugoy complained, “I don’t ask for a barbed wire fence, B, but my dwellin’ is swellin’.” Meanwhile, imitating wannabes lurked in the bushes. These rhyme-biting rappers took the form of vermin leaving unsightly craters all over the front yard. The crew repatched the potholes with daisies. Individuality trumped suburban conformity.
But success threatened the group. On their first national tour, the crew seemed to recoil from their audiences. They trudged through low-energy sets anticipating the inevitable conclusion, having to perform “Me Myself & I,” as if their biggest hit had been their biggest mistake. Even later, long after they had become one of hip-hop’s best live acts, they would still introduce the record by asking the crowd to chant, “Say, ‘We hate this song!’”
Worse were the physical threats. From coast to coast, antagonistic fans and managers tried to roll them, believing their allusions to peace, love, and daisies made them soft hippie marks. Word soon got out that De La Soul was knuckling up and taking down heads from Rhode Island to Cincinnati to Denver.
De La Soul were making a point about the power of culture to mobilize people to action or immobilize them with fear. It was an idea they explored more explicitly on their fable, “Tread Water.” There were animals, squeaky organs, friendly humming—at the time, journalist Harry Allen called it the most African song he’d heard in hip-hop—but “Tread Water” also offered perhaps the most ambitious hope on the record, that De La’s music might help us all elevate our heads above the water. In this polar-cap-melting, politically disastrous age, the song feels prophetic.
Today’s debate over sampling is mostly mind-numbingly narrow, shaped largely by big-money concerns that are ahistorical, anti-cultural, and anti-creative. The current regime rewards the least creative class—lawyers and capitalists—while destroying cultural practices of passing on. Post-hip-hop intellectual property law rests on racialized ideas of originality, and preserves the vampire profits of publishing outfits like Bridgeport Music, that sue sampling producers while preventing artists like George Clinton from sharing their music with next-generation musicians, and large corporations like Warner Brothers that continue to disenfranchise Black genius.
By contrast, the processes of sampling and layering on 3 Feet High and Rising and other hip-hop classics of that era demonstrate the opposite: expansively, giddily democratic—Delacratic, even—values.
Pos’s production on “Eye Know” put Steely Dan into conversation with Otis Redding and the Mad Lads, his work on “Say No Go” Hall and Oates with the Detroit Emeralds. The musical chorus of “Potholes in My Lawn” pointed not only to Parliament’s 1970 debut Osmium, but to the African American roots of country and western music.
Together, the sampled sounds of the Jarmels, the Blackbyrds, the New Birth, and even white artists like Led Zeppelin, Bob Dorough, and Billy Joel, make a strong case that all of American pop is African-American pop, from which everyone has been borrowing. Sampling—De La Soul sampling Parliament, Obama sampling Lincoln, Melania sampling Michelle—is nothing less than the American pastime, the creative reuse of history amid the tension between erasure and emergence that is central to the struggle for the republic. No one can ever do it as big as De La Soul did”.
PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
I think I connected with 3 Feet High and Rising at a young age because of the assortment of sounds and the somewhat charming and child-like aspect of some tracks. Even though the album is jam-packed, it is accessible and it makes a big impact. Whilst not as direct and socially aware of what was being produced by other Hip-Hop acts of the 1980s, De La Soul offered messages of peace and unity. The fact is that 3 Feet High and Rising is now considered one of the best albums ever. A progressive Hip-Hop album that offered an alternative sound and lyrical core, it is one of the first (if not the first) psychedelic Hip-Hop albums. Rather than blacks, greys, and dark reds, there are bursting oranges, greens, yellows and pinks. A multifarious joyride where we get samples of Johnny Cash, Hall & Oates, and Steely Dan! It is a shame that so many people have not heard 3 Feet High and Rising because of its lack of availability on streaming platforms and the fact that vinyl copies are quite expensive. An album that I have loved for so many years, it is one I come back to if I need a lift. Thirty-two years after its release, 3 Feet High and Rising is still being talked about as a landmark album. All these years later, it is definitely…
ONE of my very favourites.