Giving De La Soul Their Well-Deserved Flowers
The hippie label never fit them, and De La Soul Is Dead proved it. The collective they helped shape made that vision bigger than any one album.
“Always look toward the positive and never lower your head
Because the water will surround us if we don’t dare to step
So let’s step onto the water…” — (“Tread Water,” De La Soul)
The optimism and bravery in this line perfectly reflect the boundary-breaking essence of De La Soul, the group that flipped rap’s status quo at the end of the late ‘80s golden era. Known for their eclectic samples, surreal, witty, and intelligent lyrics, and their impact on the Jazz Rap subgenre, the group stands as one of the most important in hip-hop history. Today, we’ll look back at their unmistakable mark on music, while also giving them their well-deserved flowers ahead of their Mass Appeal-released LP.
Formed in 1985 in Amityville (Long Island, New York), the collective consists of Posdnuos (Kelvin Mercer), Trugoy the Dove (David Jolicoeur), and Baby Huey Maseo (Vincent Mason, Jr.). After meeting in high school and playing in several groups, the three joined forces to shape a sound far from the conventional—full of peculiar rhythms and textures that, paired with the playful slang they used among themselves (Trugoy named himself that because “Yogurt,” his favorite food, is spelled backward), produced colorful, psychedelic, and catchy music.
A flawless debut
De La Soul entered the scene in 1989 with their first album, 3 Feet High and Rising, produced by the renowned DJ and producer Prince Paul. The record covers themes like peace and love through a fun and revolutionary collage of different styles. Seen by many at the time as the future of the movement—and now considered a rap masterpiece—the album quickly became a major commercial and critical success. And while most leading rappers of the era held onto the old-school funk foundation, De La Soul presented a friendlier approach that drew not only from the styles mentioned above but also from jazz, reggae, and psychedelia.
Thanks to their impeccable debut (highlighted by “Me, Myself & I,” one of the most heavily-played rap songs in history), the group became part of the Universal Zulu Nation, the organization founded in 1976 by Afrika Bambaataa. De La Soul also joined A Tribe Called Quest, Black Sheep, Queen Latifah, and The Jungle Brothers in forming the famous Native Tongues collective, born in the late ‘80s and early ’90s and known for its positivity, Afrocentric and hopeful lyrics, and pioneering use of eclectic sampling and jazz-influenced beats.
By the end of 1989, 3 Feet High and Rising topped many year-end lists. But amid the acclaim came a highly publicized obstacle: a lawsuit from the rock group The Turtles over De La Soul’s unlicensed use of a sample from “You Showed Me.” The rock group won the case, which triggered a drastic shift for many artists—forcing multiple albums to be altered for similar reasons, delaying their releases. One of those albums was De La Soul’s next project, De La Soul Is Dead.
A change of direction
After the explosive success of 3 Feet High and Rising, the group became publicly viewed as hippie rappers who would surely continue in the same vein. But the reality was the opposite. Being labeled so narrowly sounded an alarm for them, because the members saw their career as one defined by constant musical change.
Responding to that box, they released De La Soul Is Dead in 1991, their second album. Despite being darker than the first, the group didn’t abandon their signature humor, opting to include parodies critiquing hip-hop’s new direction under the rise of gangsta rap, whose aggressive, superficial, and misogynistic traits clashed with De La Soul’s philosophy. The cover—showing a broken pot of daisies—symbolized an attempt to shed the hippie label. The album didn’t come close to the debut’s success, but it remains a cult classic and a fan favorite.
A career that left no one indifferent
After De La Soul Is Dead came six more albums, bringing the group’s total to eight. In 1993, they released Buhloone Mindstate (where they developed a new sound and positioned themselves as pillars of alternative rap). In 1996 came Stakes Is High (their first album, not produced by Prince Paul but by the group themselves). In 2000, they issued Art Official Intelligence (a planned series of triple albums). In 2004, they released their seventh album, The Grind Date, and finally, in 2016, after successfully crowdfunded their Kickstarter campaign, they returned with And the Anonymous Nobody, featuring collaborators like Snoop Dogg. They also earned a Grammy for a collaboration with the British virtual band Gorillaz.
After disputes with Tommy Boy Music regarding their catalog, De La finally released their discography on streaming platforms, but before that came to fruition, Trugoy the Dave sadly passed away on February 12, 2023. Praised by many and called “unoriginal” by a few, the members of De La Soul have shown that when you lose the fear of being yourself, your energy moves differently—even if that means being different.