Nine Songs: De La Soul

All genres aside, there are very few artists that mean as much to as many as De La Soul. Their debut 3 Feet High and Rising – a heady brew of Prince Paul’s fiercely original sample-heavy beats and the trio’s joyously charismatic bars – was an instant classic, one of hip hop’s first global-smash albums, but that was only the beginning. With a timeless debut and its distinct, flower-powered aesthetic, the group had seemingly stumbled upon a formula for success alarmingly quickly. Audaciously charismatic rhymes over super playful, funky beats that had the same warmth as ‘60s psychedelia, with a generous helping of comedy on the side. Critics dubbed them the hippies of hip hop. But the last thing that the inventive Long Island trio wanted to do was to fit neatly into a box and joylessly churn music out to a formula. Time and time again, De La Soul reinvented themselves – to them, transforming together was as beautiful as creating together. First, they shook things up with the state-of-the-nation De La Soul is Dead, then the oddball jazz-rap Buhloone Mindstate, before once more turning left into the era-defining Stakes Is High. Before the core trio were Trugoy the Dove, Posdnuos, and Ma...