The album that kept the great British funk band Cymande solvent for years.
The album that kept the great British funk band Cymande financially solvent for years.

On Friday, August 26, KEXP will spend 12 hours, from 6am to 6pm, spinning every song sampled on 3 Feet High and Rising, ">De La Soul’s freewheeling 1989 hip hop album. They’ll also play all the album tracks, plus rarities, B-sides, and interviews with the group’s members.

Produced by Prince Paul, 3 Feet consists of dozens of snippets from a diverse sound pool (Kraftwerk, Melvin Bliss, the Monkees, Cerrone, Liberace, etc.), all stitched ingeniously into improbable coherence and deep funkiness. And unlike almost every other hiphop album in the history of recorded music, De La Soul and Prince Paul made sure that even the goddamn skits aren't skippable. This should be a fascinating exploration of the atomic structure of an enduring piece of sonic/lyrical art. KEXP's special broadcast coincides with the release of De La Soul's new album, …And The Anonymous Nobody.