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.
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.
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."
DLS' full catalog is coming to DSPs on March 3, 2023, and they're rereleasing 3 Feet High and Rising along with a bunch of related merch.
Oui, oui, all very good news.
In addition, I for one would take a Posdnuos solo album produced and arranged by French-Lebanese trumpeter Ibrahim Maalouf. To be clear, as far as I know, that's not at all a thing. But after hearing Pos snap on this song off Maalouf's Capacity To Love project, I'd very much like to put the idea into the universe.
"Quiet Culture" is must-rewind monolith of jazz-inflected, children's choir-backed rap in the grand tradition of "Trying People."
Find your polling place here (NY) or here (elsewhere in U.S.). Polls are open until 9PM in NY. If you're still on the line when polls close, do not leave — you have the right to cast a ballot. Fuck fascism.
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.)
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.
Picking up where the last post left off, here we have two mixes from Pipomixes, including one that's all slowed versions of De La Soul cuts. The De La Slow title will be familiar to De La Soul fans as De La themselves included a previously unreleased joint by that name on their Impossible Mission album and also used the phrase on the "WRMS: Cats in Control" interlude off De La Soul Is Dead. Pipomixes smartly started off the mix with that cut as a matter of fact.
As for Raw Smooth Sh*t, this mix harks back to another one featured in the early days of this website, that is, Sounds Like Porridge, which was featured here in January 2015. The difference this time around is that instead of blending Roc Marciano tracks with their sample sources, Pipomixes is blending in cuts from inimitable sonsgstress Sade. This mix also helps satisfy a longing for effectively slowed Roc Marciano songs that has been festering in me since I recorded a DJ doing this to "Deeper" at one of the early Casette Store Days. Stream both mixes below.
For a rapper who's been at it 30 years, De La Soul's Posdnuos has done shockingly few solo features. Here he teams with Canadian hip-hoppers Grand Analog for a spot on their new Survival EP. I've been meaning to put together a follow-up to The Lost Tapes' Plug Wonders compilation, called De La De La Soul - (Un)Plug 1, so you can bet if that ever gets done, this'll be on there.
and the Anonymous Nobody, he has a Tidal. (Tidal!)
Well, if you do have a Tidal (Tidal!), then you can stream De La Soul's upcoming London concert at the Roundhouse, this Friday at 4 p.m. Those who've seen De La Soul in concert know their live show's one of hip-hop's best, the result of decades of practice. For some perspective, revisit De La Soul live in Philly circa 1989, and below check out a G.O.O.D. Music party cipher from 2008 featuring De La along with Will I Am, Mos Def, Nas and Kanye West.
Love 'em, hate 'em, or leave 'em alone, De La Soul have throughout their career been nothing if not divisive, and the critical response to their new album seems to be in keeping with that pattern. Whatever your thoughts about and the Anonymous Nobody, the Monster Energy-"fueled," J. Anders Urmacher-directed film, We're Still Here (now)... a documentary about nobody, provides valuable insight into the creative and commercial processes that went into the making of De La's first album in 12 years. The documentation doesn't stop there, though.
Earlier today, Mass Appeal posted the trailer to De La Soul Is Not Dead, a short film that "not only looks into the history of De La Soul, but also explores the nagging legal and sample clearance issues that has prevented them from releasing their classic albums such as De La Soul Is Dead (1991) and Stakes is High (1996) on digital platforms like iTunes, Apple Music, or Spotify." The film comes out Wednesday, September 7, but you can learn more about the aforementioned issues from Finn Cohen's New York Times August 8 article, "De La Soul's Legacy Is Trapped in Digital Limbo."
The first album ever to feature both Roc Marciano and David Byrne (I don't need to fact-check that, right?) is now available for pre-order — digital copies only, for now, apparently.
Today marks the 25th anniversary of what is undoubtedly one of the greatest Long Island hip-hop albums of all time, De La Soul is Dead. To celebrate this milestone, the group have put together memorials at 298 Elizabeth Street (former location of Rush Management) and 37th Street & 6th Avenue (former location of Calliope Recording Studios). If you're in the neighborhood, stop by and light a candle for us.
De La has also launched a website, delasoulisdead.com, where you can attach your name to a scrolling memorial registry, stream the album, and download a previously unreleased demo from the DLSID sessions. If you'd like to hear some other demos, remixes and b-sides from those sessions, check out our re-up of the T.R.O.Y. blog's De La Soul is Dead Era Rarities compilations.
Perhaps in a transparent effort to quell the can-hurling masses of
Kickstarter supporters raucously demanding updates on the crowd-funded and the Anonymous Nobody album,
De La Soul has released a four-track EP along with their announcement that
the aforementioned full-length will be out August 26.
First Serve was a project by French producers Chokolate and Khalid and De La Soul's Pos and Dave, which cast the two veteran MCs as young rappers recording their way to stardom from out of their parents' basements. A real experiment in world building, the project produced not just a concept album but several tumblrpages full of cool shit and this fantastic mixtape, which you can stream above and download here.
Covering De La Soul for the Philadelphia Daily News, Jonathan Takiff wrote:
"Just when you thought rap was stuck in a muddy rut, along comes a brand-new thing like De La Soul, appearing tonight at the Chestnut Cabaret.
"Spawned in the suburban, not-at-all-horrifying community of Amityville, on New York's Long Island, De La Soul brings a playful, neo-psychedelic style of sound collage, innocence and humor to rap.
"They're actually much closer in spirit to Prince than to hard-core political rappers like their "Strong Island" neighbors, Public Enemy."
Chopped Herring Records Owner Pro Celebrity Golf clearly puts a great deal of time and effort into curating his label's releases, and over the past few years he's done as much as anyone for Long Island hip-hop, specifically by unearthing previously unheard recordings by JVC Force, DJ Stitches and Eternal Intellect among others. So, I won't get in the way on this one. Read Pro's write-up for The Chosen Few demo, stream the snippets below, and get your pre-order in before this edition of 350 sells out, as it most likely will.
Picture it, Long Island, NY, 1986. The crack epidemic had taken its
hold over the hood. In fact there had just been an edition of the
popular American news show "60 Minutes" which featured a block in
Amityville, soon to be known to some local artists as Horror City, which
was suffering from heavy unemployment and the effects of the this new
drug crisis. Some Zulu Nation cats had came out to Amityville for a
block party. The Crash Crew were battling a local crew called The God
Squad, which comprised of Rahmel, Mc Duel & MC Finesse. An underrage
Brian Jackson aka B-Nice snuck into the battle. This night was the
start of his transformation into an MC.
B-Nice and his boy B-Love aka Lovey Brown had met at Copiague High
School through a mutual passion for music. B-Nice played drums in the
school chorus and picked up DJ'ing skills from friends of his brother
who was 7 years his senior. Nice's grandfather was a close friend of the
father of De La Soul's Maseo and the boys had met at an early age. They
started to hang out through mutual friend DJ Stitches, reputedly one of
the founding members of De La Soul. As you know, De La were a big deal
in the late 80's and while writing their [incredible] second album "De
La Soul is Dead" they guest-produced and featured on The Chosen Few
project to help their boys and fellow Amityville artists. They took the
demo to Puffy in 1991 who was then with Uptown, to Lyor Cohen at Rush
and to Chrysalis and Virgin among others. They got great feedback, but
no deal. As often happens the group disbanded but morphed into a new
group Fourty Dogs. The demos were locked away and never heard again.....
-----until a Hip Hop demo tape collector, Scott Rodkey, copped a large
collection of tapes in 2015. Among other obscure artifacts was The
Chosen Few demo tape. No one to do with the group had a copy of the
tracks and after posting on the excellent DWG forum, word got to Herring
HQ and we approached the artists. As no masters remained and as this
was SUCH a special collection of tracks, we mastered from the original
demo tape, the only source available. The sound is very good, no
glitches at all, but it still has the general feel of a demo [it was
never taken into a proper studio and mastered]. We are very proud to
present to you the Time Capsule 1991 Demos. ENJOY.....
Says Kelvin Mercer, "Sop sound reversed is Posdnuos/ Known for all my lyrical complexities but not for all the De La joints I produced." Ah well, this here De La Soul-featured Slum Village joint was posthumously produced by "Stakes Is High" mastermind J Dilla with assistance from living Slum Villager Young RJ.
Yesterday, De La Soul dropped a new track they did with Nas to continue building buzz for their Kickstarter-funded album, And the Anonymous Nobody. Though the song's great in its own right, it won't be included on the upcoming project. Regardless, that's where all De-La-related attention is focused right now, so it's only mildly surprising (if not further indicative of the modern music press' shortsightedness) that most hip-hop sites that posted the track yesterday failed to link to or at least mention this timeless recording of Nas, Pos and Dave sharing the mic on Tim Westwood's Radio 1 Rap Show back in 1996.
It's rare to hear multiple generation-spanning and -defining artists such as Nas and De La Soul paired naturally in any setting; rarer still to hear them trading off-the-head freestyles. So stream their first recording above, their latest below, and yes, don't forget there's still time to contribute to the And the Anonymous Nobody Kickstarter.
