Rozewood - Channel 13

Phantoms acappellas haunt DJ Skizz beats. Believe it or not, Channel 13 was announced 10 years ago. Its first song, the Arch Druids-produced "Ghxt GxD" has been out as long. This, apparently, happened back when the concept of an album-length Roc Marciano-Arch Druids collaboration was a novel one, but I digress. Channel 13 sounds like blue blood sunsets over the southern Meadowbrook Parkway drenched in Liquid Television airwaves. No, not the Robert Moses Parkway; you can't see the City skyline from there. It's a digital crate dug trench work, a ghost in the machine in the machine in the ghost. The catalog's dead and buried. Winners shit. The obi strip's your only hope. 

De La Soul - Cabin In The Sky

Day, glow. The other side of seasonal affective disorder is da inner sound, yall. Well, it depends on what your meaning of the word 'is' is. Defining existence and nonexistence as codependents in direct opposition has always been the move for those of us who, consciously or not, preoccupy ourselves with what's next. Think ahead. Hence, "'If yall stop then Dave stops,' and that wouldn't be the sure shot." De La Soul—and one might argue Hip-Hop—has always operated a larger collective of friends/collaborators making/doing art/science that reflects/refracts popular music/culture. It might blow up but it won't go pop, baby, baby, baby, baby. Their second album has a skit consisting of tea time melodies interrupted repeatedly by thrash metal mayhem. De La Soul take "no biting" to such extremes they rarely ever repeat themselves between projects, to the extent that the most common threads across their catalog are continuing insistences on reinvention and variety. Self-referential motifs recur with flipped meanings and function. Frequent guests arrive with new mixed company.

When I was a kid going to Wantagh Summer Rec, we took regular trips to United Skates in North Massapequa. I can't remember what songs used to play at the roller rink, but I know Boyz II Men and Mariah Carey were in heavy rotation. Between their hits aired a fair helping of what I now know to be freestyle, house, new wave, and new jack swing. Again, I don't recall specific tracks, but instead a feeling of summery joy. Cabin In The Sky has that same energy. And I don't mean genre-y. Seasons change. Mad things rearrange. It's an album of presence from the hitherto for the hereafter.

Muddy - girl Problemz

It was one thing when GZA was using his albums to introduce the world to Killah Priest or Ka, but ever since that one biggest rapper/producer of the century started throwing existing pop songs into the mix, I've had no idea what's happening. For several years, I edited a monthly mixtapes column that was mostly albums. Today, the waters are even muddier. 

Case in point: I don't know how many of these songs are Muddy's and Muddy's alone and how many, if any, are remixes. What's a rap remix anyway, a fucking cloak? For that matter, in today's Soundcloud rap terms, what the fuck is a playlist? A mixtape by any other word would sound as compiled. 

It's not that I'm altogether washed—see what I did there—but I do acknowledge there's a whole ecosystem of new rap about which I know next to nothing. Maybe Muddy combs the biome? 

"Maybe yes, maybe no, maybe go fuck yourself."

De La Soul - "Bigger" ft. Choklate

To say De La Soul means a lot to Long Island hip-hop, this site, and me would be a tragic understatement. If there is such a thing as a Long Island sound, it's to be found in the margins between the group's dynamics. And in case you've never noticed, all the sections of this site's home page are named after De La Soul song titles. As for me, Stakes Is High got me through my final semester at college, and the best concert story I have centers around seeing De La share the Central Park Summer Stage with DOOM and Rakim—a tale for another day. My point is, whatever you and I think De La Soul means, it's bigger.

Since the first time I heard it, I've held the opinion that "Trying People" is one of the best rap songs ever made. "Bigger" shares so much emotional weight with that song that it could've been titled "Still Trying People" and nobody would've raised an eyebrow. That said, one thing "Bigger" has that "Trying People" definitely doesn't is the phenomenal vocals of neo-soul singer Choklate. Though some might be hearing her for the first time now, the Seattle-based songstress has been releasing music since the 2000s and actually featured on a Moby single last year. In fact, calling "Bigger" a previously unreleased song is only half true. A De La Soul-less version of the Vitamin D-produced track appeared under the longer title, "Bigger Than You," on Choklate's self-titled debut album in 2006. For posterity and further contemplation, stream both versions below.

Gray to Dayglo: Black & White Roots of the Daisy Age

November 11, 2021, Bonhams London, New Bond Street sells at auction Six Original Studies for the De La Soul '3 Feet High and Rising' Debut Album Artwork at 32,250 British pound sterling. The auction house describes the lot's centerpiece as a "black and white photographic print with Posca paint pen art work on acetate overlay bearing the band and album name with floral design motifs, adhered with small pieces of tape to each side, stamped Grey Organisation along lower right margin." May 21, 1985, the Gray Organisation (GO) artists collective executes an "art terrorist attack" on London's Cork Street galleries, splattering their front windows with grey paint. Some years later, GO founder Toby Mott has De La Soul over to the collective's Grand Street, Manhattan loft for the 3 Feet High and Rising cover shoot. Prior to this encounter, Mott and co. film the video for "Potholes in My Lawn" in Amityville. The Super 8 recording begins in anarchic black-and-white stop-motion not so far removed from the Organisation's founding aesthetic. "We parodied yuppie and Soviet corporate monoculture with our uniformed anonymity, shaved heads, white shirts, English suits, making and exhibiting art as product without individual authorship, something inspired from the rigorous orthodoxy of Crass." The video ends in color. The cover shoot follows a similar trajectory. "We laid the trio down on the floor of our loft with their heads almost touching and took a black and white photo from above. They seemed mystified. We added the dayglo background and, since the daisy-age concept suggested flowers, I drew some on with Posca paint pens, which were the new thing, very popular with graffiti artists." Thus, from the Situationist International origins of Crass (dé)collage, filtered through an acid house revival of psychedelic flower power, "The whole visual identity of the Daisy Age was born." Bonus trivia: Mott goes on to operate the Biz Markie puppet on the cover of Master Ace's "Me and the Biz" single and direct the video for Public Enemy's "Shut 'Em Down."

He Did It for Us: RIP Dave

For me, De La Soul has always been one of the most natural rap groups of all time. I don't mean to say that their music stems naturally from the earth, or spiritually from some ethereal plane as their name might be read to imply. I mean that their members complement one another so well, it's hard to imagine one without the others. Pos and Dave rap like lifelong friends in conversation, starting, continuing, and finishing each others' sentences, their exchange-routines so fluid the numbers 1 and 2 become more for the audience's benefit than anything else. I cannot begin to imagine what Posdnuos and Maseo are going through. 

The singular expression of the human experience Dave shared with the world through his words and voice goes far beyond music. In that sense, it's futile to lament how much the world loses in his absence. It's a shame that De La Soul's legacy and Dave's obituaries seem forever tied to industry politics when their art has so much more to offer; as reductive as dismissing the group as hippies or hearing Stakes Is High only as a reaction to the commodification of hip-hop culture. Those who wish to dwell on these points might do well to check out First Serve, Dave and Pos' 2012 concept album where they play two 20-somethings with a dream of making it in the rap game of that era. Ironically, this project, which has never not been available online, says more about industry politics than any article ever written on De La Soul's relationship with sampling and streaming.

On First Serve, Dave portrays not only one of the two main characters, rapper Dean "D" Witter, but also D's mother, Lenore Agnes Witter. I was playing the album on my way to work this past week. Ma Witter's appearance on "Clash Symphony" elicited in me one of those deep belly laughs, a kind of catharsis I guess. 

Am I just another lost in the pack? 

We Horshack shit, you know, laugh it off

The years just blow by

My eyes stay fixed but the picture's kind of out of focus

I cry a lot but admit to it

Enjoying life now but I been through it

Sometimes I wish that I can go back

No bills, no kids, just getting to' back

I want a wife, I love women

How could I front like I don't be in love with 'em

A little man that I could teach

A little sand but not the beach

I figure excess'll only bring an excessive amount of fuss

So when I'm gone make sure the head stone reads he did it for us

I'm like a modern-day Jesus

I cherish warm thoughts like a Grey Goose

And float soft kisses to my baby (Yo ain't that Dave's little girl?)

Yeah, respect for that, she gonna be somebody

Instead of somebody baby mama

You see, young minds are now made of armor

I'm tryna pop a hole in your Yankee cap, absorb me

The skies over your head ain't safe no more

And hip-hop ain't your home

And if it is you fucking up the crib, son

You make life look like I don't wanna live one

You might as well hold your breath until you die in a corner

Somewhere bent over in the crevice

This God theory overcomes the worst of weathers

As long as you willing to try

You on a good start, homie

You on a good start so get to trying

People are you ready?

Are you really ready?

Ready for the change that may approach you?

Follow down the path that you supposed to

People are you ready?

Are you really ready to try?

You know mistakes are trials that we learn from

In order to live life, you must earn one

People are you ready?

RIP David "Trugoy" Jolicoeur. 

(Everyone reading this, be sure to run up these De La Soul album pre-orders.)

Dunbar x BP - Notorious Unbreakable

Why I don't write like they (critics) write. What when they say someone sounds like somebody and somebody else, but that somebody sounds like somebody else and that someone sounds more like this somebody else but not so much the other one? What then? Where you from? 

Michael Jackson's "Unbreakable" features a posthumously released Notorious B.I.G. verse that probably previously appeared on some mixtape some bork from Romania could tell you much more about than I could, and good for them (the bork).

J. Dilla did a song called "Time: The Donut Hole of the Heart," which, twice played as slowly as possible on a standard turntable, happens to line up pretty much perfectly with the final scene of Before Midnight, Richard Linklater's 2014 threequel to Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. 

Amity Villains whet expectations for this one. Notorious Unbreakable met those and then some.

Eternal Intellect - Da GreyWolf Series: Da Frost Giant

Also by way of the Ville, if that which is eternal can really hail from anywhere in particular other than the ether, it's the third installment in Da GreyWolf Series: Da Frost Giant, featuring an alcoholic allegory for interracial relationships, a glamor-free assessment of opiate addiction over the "Blow the Whistle" beat, and more flows than you can shake a Mjolnir-shaped stick at. Also, sometimes you just have to sing.

Rhyme Va-Lor - Holiday Boogie

You're hanging out, spinning records, soul joints mostly, shoulder moving stuff, and there's a mic just lying there. Nobody seems to notice but you. You imagine you're not DJing and subtly nod toward the mic as if to say to yourself, "Oh, you've got something? Well," and though it's been a while, it's also the holidays, and you're feeling right so you do what needs doing, a verse here and a couple more over there, just hanging out, spinning records, doing your thing.

 

Prince Paul Talks to Chuck D and Harry Allen about It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back

I'm not much for music podcasts. Why would I listen to people talk about music when I could just listen to music instead? Possibly the only nice thing about written music criticism is that it can be read or written while listening to music, thus allowing for some semblance of an attempt at direct engagement. But I digress. What I am much for is anyone giving Prince Paul a microphone and a platform to say or do basically anything, but preferably whatever he wants to do. If that thing so happens to be talking to Chuck D and Harry Allen about Public Enemy's classic sophomore album, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, all the better. And if that discussion has to be interspersed with readings from the 33 1/3 book about said album voiced by Open Mike Eagle, so be it. (OME's first season of What Had Happened Was, featuring a series of conversations with Prince Paul about his discography, is also a good music podcast as it happens.) Now if only someone would pay me to talk to Paul for 3 hours about It Takes a Nation of Suckers To Let Us In then I'll be really sold on the value of music podcasts...

BP & Bunchy Cartier - Amity Villains

On March 12, 2021, Ronald DeFeo Jr. died at the Albany Medical Center. An inmate at Sullivan Correctional Facility, DeFeo had been serving 25-to-life for six counts of second-degree-murder. According to the court, on November 13, 1974, at the age of 23, DeFeo shot and killed his mother, father and four siblings. The night of the murders, Ronald Jr. walked into Henry's Bar (later Cloud Nine, now Parisi's Pizza & Pasta) on Merrick Road and said "You got to help me! I think my mother and father are shot!" The next day, Ronald Jr. confessed to the crime. A heroin and LSD user, he pled insanity at trial. The court found him guilty in November 1975 and sentenced him in December. 

That same month, George and Kathleen Lutz purchased and moved into the house where the DeFeo family had lived at 112 Ocean Avenue. They moved out 28 months later, claiming they'd been terrorized by ghosts. This served as the basis for the Amityville Horror books and films, which made the village known across the country. Referencing its infamy as well as worsening living conditions there during the 1980s, some local residents started calling Amityville Horror City, which led to the rise of the Hip-Hop collective of the same name.

Though not part of that collective, Amity Villains BP and Bunchy Cartier likely came up hearing and experiencing many of the same stories; some true, some embellished, some complete fabrications, all equally capable of inspiring more stories. At one point, DeFeo Jr. blamed the killings on his great uncle, a Genovese family capo. The Amityville Horror books and films repeatedly allege the DeFeo home sat atop the site of a former resting place for insane or dying Shinnecock Indians. Neither of these claims is factual, but both are rooted in facts and fears. Many Long Islanders have a great-uncle with ties to organized crime. All Long Islanders live on lands once tended by Native Americans. Our imaginations fill in the rest. In many ways, Amityville is like any other Long Island suburb. Homes there cost about a minimum of $500,000. The informal economy thrives there. Ghosts lurk between those sentences like chambers of commerce between village halls.  

Amity Villains sounds like those phantoms, their half-told ghost stories the very essence of suburban myth: business and government. 

Hardcore - Take It from the Top / A Different Groove / High Time (Maxi-Single)

Back in April, I shared what little info I could gather on a group called Hardcore, who released two singles on NuBeat Recores. In writing about the first, 1987's We Got It All / The Power of Rhyme, produced and mixed by Prince Paul, I mentioned that the second single also involved a Long Island legend. In this case, 1988's Take It from the Top / A Different Groove / High Time maxi-single was mixed by none other than Hank Shocklee of the Bomb Squad. As it happens, Shocklee's isn't the only recognizable name associated with this release, as the back cover lists the group's manager as Lumumba Carson, who would soon after become known as Professor X of the X-Clan. In fact, you can even hear Carson saying "vanglorious ...  protected by the red, the black and the green" on each track (and if I'm not mistaken, that's him standing in the back right on the cover). As for the music itself, all three tracks are in keeping with the whole "hardcore" hip-hop angle. The first, "Take It from the Top," was even included on Priority Records' Hard Rap compilation, a project that featured gangsta rap pioneers Ice-T and N.W.A. along with the likes of MC Hammer and Kid 'N Play. Beyond that, there's not much to say. Cooley High raps about rocking parties and taking down rival MCs, and Double B scratches on every chorus. It's dope.

Hardcore - We Got It All / The Power of Rhyme

Who is Hardcore? Aside from the rap act with maybe the least googleable name ever, it's hard to say, as Hardcore apparently only released two singles, neither of which lists any writing credits. The closest you'll find to one of those is on the second single (to be covered further in another post), which cites Chris Nicholson and Brian Birthwright as its producers. Brian Birthwright, aka Double B, would later become a member of Resident Alien and is referred to here in the song, "We Got It All," as the DJ. Listen close and you will also catch the name of the group's MC, Cooley High. Whether or not Cooley is Chris Nicholson is unclear*. Unfortunately, the name Cooley High is not on the label of either single, and there does not appear to be any other information about him readily available. At any rate, Cooley is almost undoubtedly from around the way as he shouts out "the ville," and both of the singles involved Long Island legends. Case in point: We Got It All / The Power of Rhyme was produced and mixed by none other than Prince Paul.

Notably, this single, released in 1987 on Priority imprint NuBeat Records, actually pre-dates Plug-Tunin', making it possibly Prince Paul's first production credit apart from his work with Stetsasonic. As for the sound of that production, it's certainly more closely identifiable with Paul's work from Stet — heavy basslines, loud snares and a kind of electro feel to it — than with De La. (In fact, at the end of the single Cooley shouts out Stet along with Paul. He also name-drops Rakim for that matter.) The B-Side, "Power of the Rhyme" is similarly straightforward and true to the name Hardcore. Nevertheless, both songs bang in their own right and showcase Prince Paul as a young producer who was more than capable of making a dope record or two. As for Cooley, he sounds here no less capable as a rapper, which only adds further mystery to the question at the start of this post. 

Who is Hardcore? Tough call. But in 1987, at least according to this single, they had it all.

*March 20, 2023 Edit: On February 8, 2023, a YouTube commenter by the name of Brian James confirmed that Cooley High is indeed Chris Nicholson. He added that Nicholson is the uncle of retired NBA player Mike James.

John Jigg$ x BP - "Slang Original"

 

Filmed at 7th Headquarters with private dances by mood light over bumper pool, "Slang Original" is the latest video off John Jigg$ and BP's new album, The Madness. If any of those elements appeal, stream or download this. If all of them do, politely insist on a physical release as well!

Get 2 Know Deaf 2 U

Deaf 2 U aka Deaf 2 U Productions/Inc. was the production duo of Lucious "Luck" Mercer and Neal "Purp" Forrester, who first met at Amityville Junior High School. The group produced three songs for Gee Street singer Ambersunshower (previously a member of the duo Groove Garden) and another three for De La Soul, culminating with masterpiece "Trying People," the final track on AOI: Bionix. Shortly thereafter, they reemerged producing and rapping under the new name, Mood Doctors, with their debut album General Medicine released independently on a label called Deaf 2 U. (Mood Doctors have since released no fewer than seven albums, but that's for another post or seven.) 

Mercer and Forrester did also rap under the name Deaf 2 U on at least one song, "Caution," which appeared on Tags Of The Times Version 2.0, a compilation put out by Japanese label Mary Joy Recordings in 1999. An interesting artifact of its times, this compilation series featured tracks from some of the most popular underground hip-hop acts of the late '90s and early '00s, including Company Flow, MF DOOM, Talib Kweli, Aesop Rock and Aceylaone to name just a few. Nevertheless, Deaf 2 U's appearance stands out and not just because it's the only song they released under the name. It's also noteworthy to hear two artists who came up under De La Soul (if you haven't figured it out already Luck is Posdnuos's brother) rapping on a song produced by Da Beatminerz's Mr. Walt in a kind of alternative hip-hop setting. In that sense, "Caution" foreshadows the turn De La themselves would take on their AOI albums.

Below you can hear "Caution" followed by Deaf 2 U's first credit, Ambersunshower's "Blue Skies Butterflies" (1995), and De La Soul's "Oooh," "Foolin'" and "Trying People." (For the other two Ambersunshower tracks Deaf 2 U did, you'll have to dig up her Walter T. maxi-single.)

Dunbar - "Why You Do That" (prod. by Josh Lamont)

For "Why You Do That," Dunbar summoned up the type of Josh Lamont beat that helped make Rozewood's The Ghost of Radio Raheem one of, if not the, last decade's dopest documents of Amityville hip-hop. It's short, slow, and straight to the point of slapping the shit out of you. Sure Shot and Bunchy Cartier's No Hook 3 has been operating in kind since October 2020.

Prince Paul - The Crazy Forgotten 80's

Prince Paul dropped another installment in the It's Not the Size Your Mix It's How You Use It series streaming on his Mixcloud page. The description labels it part 1, so hopefully there's another coming soon. Note: it's been five years since the last one so some patience may be required here.  Also required listening: the hilarious and insightful interview podcast Prince Paul and Open Mike Eagle did earlier this year, featuring in-depth discussion of some of Paul's best and lesser known projects. Completely unknown: whether or not Prince Paul received the cassette tape and letter I tried to send him this year.

Lord Brothers - By Every Means Necessary Vol. 1

It'd be futile to try and write about By Every Means Necessary Vol. 1 without also writing about the program for which this music was composed, Who Killed Malcolm X? And it'd be dismissive to merely categorize the latter as a true-crime docu-series without acknowledging the show's subtext. Yes, the documentarian's search for the truth about Malcolm X's murder is the underlying premise, but perhaps an even larger conflict at hand is reconciling a crucial legacy of Black empowerment and message of self-determination with an enduring hyprocrisy of dogmatic totalitarianism and decades of institutionalized scapegoating. More than a plot point, it's a mood, a slow burn that sears far nastier than any simple murder mystery arc.

The series soundtrack, composed by 39-year songwriting partners Prince Paul and Don Newkirk and released on Needle To the Groove records as By Every Means Necessary Volume 1, captures that mood and heightens that tension by elucidating stakes even higher than life and death. Also, like the series, the soundtrack is not prisoner to genre conventions; instead, it showcases the universality of Don and Paul's musical sensiblities as well as the depth of the crates that helped these composers hone their chops. And then there are the lyrics. On "The Hilton," vocal accompanist Saleem says, "The third world war? It's about the revolution of the spirit. Religion is anti-revolutionary. Revolution: what goes around comes around, again and again. If there's one thing I know about revolution, it's inevitable. Televised or not, it's just a matter of time. Are you ready for the inevitable?" It's not the first project Paul and Don have scored together, and it definiteley shouldn't be the last (this is Volume 1 after all!), but it just might be the most important one.

Thoughts on a couple semi-obscure De La Soul songs from 1993 and their legacy...

Now here's something that's both an interesting find and a shining example of how YouTube can simultaneously be one of the best and worst platforms on the internet. Above is a 9-minute clip from Tony Touch's Hip-Hop 35 mixtape, featuring a here-untitled track by De La Soul, followed by Tha Alkoholiks' "Bullshit," with plenty of Tony's cuts included. One of the YouTube commenters identifies the song as the ostensibly unreleased "Come On, Yeah," based apparently on the fact that the words for that song on several lyrics sites match the words here. The commenter also takes issue with Tony's scratching, saying it "ruins the song." Which, I mean, come on... Further, if we check the Discogs page for Hip-Hop 35 (which, to be fair, might not have been around eight years ago when this was posted on YouTube), we find that the title of the song is "Ego Trippin' (Part 3) (Egoristic Mix)."



(So, you might ask, why even post the YouTube stream if I've found the source? Simply because this is how it came to my attention in the first place and I like Tony Touch's scratching.)

Far from unreleased, "Ego Trippin' (Part 3)" appears on the Ego Trippin' (Part Two) single, which was released by a well known record label in 1993 as the second single off De La Soul's third LP, Buhloone Mind State. (Fun fact: Discogs catalogs 21 editions of this single!) However, unlike the A side's LA Jay Remix, "Ego Trippin' (Part 3)" is not really a remix at all. "Ego Trippin' (Part 3)" is a whole other song, with completely different lyrics from Pos and Dave and music by Xavier Hardgrove aka Spearhead X, who's credited with co-remixing the track along with The Beat Messiahs. Curiously, this is the Messiahs' only credit on Discogs. Hardgrove, however, you might also recognize as the producer of "Dinninit" off De La Soul's next album, Stakes Is High. There's also another connection to Stakes Is High here, as Posdnuos spits a line that would later appear on that album's intro ... I won't give it away, though, as his whole verse is utterly fantastic.

Speaking of incredible and incredibly overlooked Posdnuos lines from this single that would pop up elsewhere, later on the B side we get to "Lovely How I Let My Mind Float," which features Biz Markie and also does not appear on any other De La Soul albums (though it was on some versions of the Breakadawn single). Here, Posdnuos drops another ingenious couplet that might sound somewhat familiar: "Now, I'm a rap fan who never saw Bam rock the parks in the Bronx / But I still snap skulls in the dark." Can you remember where else you've heard that?

Here's a hint: it's not on a De La Soul song — in fact, it's not from a Pos verse at all...



...Give up?

Ras Kass delivers those lines verabatim as the hook of "Sonset," his response to the East Coast/West Coast beef, which appeared on his debut album, Soul On Ice, from 1996. For those keeping track, that's three years after this single was released, so there can be no doubt as to who came up with the bars. However, before we accuse Ras Kass of biting, we should consider the context. Again, "Sonset" is Ras Kass's response to the East vs. West bullshit that had engulfed hip-hop in 1996. Like many other rappers, Ras Kass took a critical view of the situation, basically at once representing the West while showing love for the East. Quoting De La Soul on the hook — and not just any De La Soul song but a semi-obscure, three-year-old b-side to "Ego Trippin' Part 2," itself a critical forerunner to the East/West beef, homage to the Ultramagnetic MCs' classic, and really a gushing love letter to the hip-hop medium — could have been Ras Kass's way of showing just how much of a "rap fan" he truly was at heart. As if to say, "If you get this reference and what it stands for, you really get where I'm coming from."

It took me 24 years to get it, but I see you, Ras Kass.

Returning focus to De La Soul, I find it somewhat odd that neither of these songs were included by the group on their Impossible Mssion TV Series Pt. 1 compilation. Maybe they were saving them for Part 2? Maybe they were deemed insufficiently obscure? Or maybe the masters were lost in the label's vaults? At any rate, "Ego Trippin' (Part 3)" did find its way onto De La Soul Rarities & Remixes, which is apparently a GZ Vinyl bootleg, as well as onto a fan-made mix by one El Rey, wishfully titled Impossible Mission pt. 2: The Search for AOI3. In the spirit of rap-nerdom, I'll leave you with that. (Also, props to Montreal's WEFUNK radio show archive, from which both of the above mp3s were ripped, and to Tony Toca of course.)

De La Soul Doing Awesome Things in Europe 89-90

Above, De La Soul appear on the Dutch television program Fa. Unst on the VPRO network. The group performs "The Magic Number," "Plug Tunin'" and "Me, Myself & I" then get interviewed by host Sylvia Pool and finally compete against UK rock group the Mute Drivers in a trivia face-off. Below, one year later De La Soul appear on the UK's Capital Rap Show with Tim Westwood for an interview and freestyle. This 1990 appearance is not to be confused with their freestyle with Nas on Tim Westwood's show in 1996. Their interview begins at 21:16 and their freestyle at 25:16.