De La Soul

[Corpsey]

Now available to stream.

De La Soul’s Music Is Finally Back. It’s a Bittersweet Victory. (Published 2023)

The influential rap trio’s catalog has long been absent from streaming services. Now its first six albums will be available, just weeks after the death of one of its members.

www.nytimes.com

A major blind spot in my hip-hop knowledge. I know the singles everybody knows but most of this stuff will be completely new to me cos for whatever reason I never bought their albums back in my CD buying days.

I'm listening to 3 Feet High and Rising as I type.

 

[line b]

what do you think?

 

[Corpsey]

Don't want to rush to judgements. I like it and I think it'll grow on me if I let it. On first listen, nothing sticks out as much as the big singles ("The Magic Number", "Me, Myself and I" and particularly "Eye Know"), but that could obviously be cos I've heard those ones a million times.

It's an interesting one cos I wonder if it's somewhat stuck behind the Time Barrier. I can imagine it would have sounded very fresh and different in 1989.

 

[Corpsey]

 

[line b]

apocalyptic

 

[Corpsey]

This is worth a watch actually

Makes me think one of the ways this sound has aged a lot is that nowadays most music sounds very 'clean' and lucid and this album is often sample upon sample upon sample layered on top of each other

 

[Corpsey]

A pfork piece by Noz

De La Soul: Buhloone Mindstate

De La Soul’s knotty and brilliant third album is a fever dream of shared memories, historical touchstones, geographical landmarks, first-person pronouns and six feet-deep self-actualizations.

pitchfork.com

 

[DannyL]

It sounded like a transmission from an alien world when they first came out.

 

[DannyL]

They're actually pretty cryptic rappers as well, which I think makes the music harder to track and recall. Lots of weird backwards sentence construction.

 

[Murphy]

Good mood music and overplayed. Heard in the background a lot, 1989 and Berlin Wall coming down gave a big lift, too light for some maybe

preference is for a couple of remixes, mainly Spinna with

 

[versh]

They occupy a similar space in my head to Main Source.

 

[DannyL]

Buhloonie Mindstate and Stakes is High are two that stuck with me. I haven't listened to 3 Ft for what seems like millenia.

Always a big fan of this late period jam with Chaka Khan:

 

[DannyL]

They occupy a similar space in my head to Main Source.

Main Source were a classic group, but kinda stuck to the template. De La were really.... weird. I remember hearing Plug Tunin' on Jay Strongman's show on Kiss (Sunday morning, before Westwood) and it just blowing my mind. Like, what was that? It was one of the first things that sounded humorous I guess, on the production as well as the vocals.

 

[luka]

easily the best of the native tongues.

 

[luka]

best mcs and best producer, easy

 

[luka]

one of the first albums i got aged 10

 

[catalog]

I had this on tape and caned it when I was a teenager, but I immediately stopped listening to it, binned it in fact, once I read that interview with autechre where they said they hated it and blamed it for hip hop going shit.

 

[craner]

I had this on tape and caned it when I was a teenager, but I immediately stopped listening to it, binned it in fact, once I read that interview with autechre where they said they hated it and blamed it for hip hop going shit.

It reminded them too much of their "early, cheesy shit"

 

[craner]

Nice one @Corpsey we haven't had a decent Autechre thread for a few months now

 

[catalog]

I can't find the interview (@version) but I think they said they didn't like how it took hip hop into a samples motivated direction.

cos they favoured the more experimental original beats / electro-y strain.