De La Soul for Life

Once upon a time in the mid-late ’80s, a trio of Long Island
high-school students and friends came together to make a record. The
result was a loping, goofy lark of a song called “Plug Tunin’,” which
captured the sound of Kelvin Mercer (aka Posdnuos, Plug One), Dave
Jolicoeur (Trugoy the Dove, Plug Two), and Vincent Mason (Maseo, Plug
Three) becoming De La Soul. A demo of the record caught the attention
of Paul Huston, a young producer soon to make a name for himself as
Prince Paul, who became the de facto fourth member of De La Soul for
the act’s first five years.

On De La Soul’s 1989 debut LP, 3 Feet High and Rising, “Plug
Tunin'” would be introduced (via Liberace sample, no less) as “perhaps
the most famous classic in all the world of music,” a fittingly
ostentatious boast on an album that revolutionized rap. With its
ridiculously promiscuous approach to sampling, swiping everything from
Schoolhouse Rock to Funkadelic to French-language instruction
tapes, 3 Feet High led more than a few writers to hail the album
as “the Sgt. Pepper’s of hiphop.” More fitting was Robert
Christgau’s positing of De La Soul as the “new wave to Public Enemy’s
punk,” and the kaleidoscopic cartoonishness of the debut only deepened
on the band’s second LP, 1991’s De La Soul Is Dead. Devoted to
dismantling the would-be hippiedom foisted on the group after their
positive-vibey debut, Dead boasts the densest, most ambitious
beats the band would ever produce. Following a bumpy reception at the
time of its release, De La Soul Is Dead has since earned a
reputation as a classic even more fiercely beloved than the debut.

Then things got really interesting. For 1993’s Buhloone
Mindstate—the band’s final production with Prince
Paul—the fast-paced sampling was ditched for a deep, organic,
jazz-tinged minimalism. With the ear-catching trickery out of the way,
the band’s musical chemistry was revealed in full, resulting in another
classic of an entirely different species than its predecessors. After
three distinct home runs, De La Soul were free to proceed however they
wanted, and they did: 1996’s Stakes Is High brought
collaborations with conscious hiphop’s next generation (Common, Mos
Def) and explicit criticism of hiphop’s gangsta-laden landscape. The
elder-statesmen-with-something-to-say role suited them, and De La
Soul’s next two albums found the friends-for-life meeting the new
millennium with hiphop that felt unprecedentedly adult. Both 2000’s
Art Official Intelligence: Mosaic Thump and 2001’s AOI:
Bionix offered (gorgeous) music more in line with Sly Stone and Al
Green than with Jay-Z and Wu-Tang. I’m still getting to know 2004’s
The Grind Date and haven’t yet heard this year’s Nike mix, but
there’s no rush. I will happily spend the rest of my life paying
attention to the work of De La Soul, who in 20 years haven’t produced a
duff album (or, it should be noted, a solo album; always and forever,
they are a group). Naming any one studio album De La Soul’s “best” does
a disservice to the music’s amazing arc, so in advance of the band’s
headline spot at Bumbershoot, here’s a five-track tour of De La Soul’s
glory.

“Plug Tunin'”

The debut single, discussed above and bested by its follow-up
(“Potholes in My Lawn”). Still, “Plug Tunin'” casually laid out themes
that would define and obsess the band for half a decade. (Specifically,
proclamations of spiritual positivity followed by threats of violence
against those who would equate spiritual positivity with
wussiness.)

“Eye Know”

I’ll say it: “Eye Know” is a better use of Steely Dan’s “Peg” melody
than Steely Dan’s “Peg.” Adding three distinct verses of sweet, sexy
lyrics and Otis Redding’s dock-of-the-bay whistle, De La Soul created
one of hiphop’s most beautiful tracks.

“Ring Ring Ring (Ha Ha Hey)”

The single that led the world into the
sometimes-bitter-but-never-sour De La Soul Is Dead, armed with a
beat that made the accomplishments of 3 Feet High and Rising sound like kid stuff.

“I Be Blowin'”

This largely instrumental track from Buhloone Mindstate boils
down what makes the album extraordinary. A Maceo Parker quote, followed
by a Parker riff, which is then allowed to roam off into four minutes
of gorgeous wordless hiphop.

“Held Down”

Cee-lo provides an Al Green–y vocal hook to the most gorgeous
song on the gorgeous AOI: Bionix, while Posdnuos (the sharpest
tongue in the group) succinctly blames a deadly tragedy on people who
“were looking for God but found religion instead.”