De La Soul - 3 Feet High & Rising
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CD Details
Artist: De La SoulEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
Published: 2003
CD Release Date: 2001-10-23
Music Label: Tommy Boy
Soundtracks:
- Intro
- The Magic Number
- Change In Speak
- Cool Breeze On The Rocks
- Can U Keep A Secret
- Jenifa Taught Me (Derwin's Revenge)
- Ghetto Thang
- Transmitting Live From Mars
- Eye Know
- Take It Off
- A Little Bit Of Soap
- Tread Water
- Potholes In My Lawn
- Say No Go
- Do As De La Does
- Plug Tunin' (Last Chance To Comprehend)
- De La Orgee
- Buddy (With Jungle Brothers And Q-Tip From A Tribe Called Quest)
- Description
- Me Myself and I
- This Is A Recording 4 Living In A Fulltime Era (L. I. F. E.)
- I Can Do Anything (Delacratic)
- D .A. I. S. Y. Age
- Plug Tunin' (Original 12' Version)
Music reviews of 3 Feet High & Rising
Music Review: A Landmark Hip-Hop album That still remains a Vital Purchase
Rating: 5 Stars
De la Soul were (along with "A Tribe Called Quest"), both 'The Thinking mans Rap Group', but also a Hip-Hop group that weren't obsessed with getting 'Paid & Laid'. What they had was a manifesto of Witty Wordplay, Freewheeling carefree attitude, a level of eclecticism rivalled by few, and (most people forget this) occasionally tackling serious subjects.
Where they dropped "3 Feet & Rising" in 1989, it (with the exception of "A Tribe Called Quest"), it marked a truly substantial album, that shifted the goalpost away from over confident posturing & a dour outlook of the streets, and delivered a supremely confident, assured & Energetic debut that raised the bar for the small 'Intelligent Rap' genre.
This was achieved through several fundamentally important elements. (1) Taking 2 gifted rappers "Posdnuos, Trugoy, & DJ Pasemaster Mase" (to emphasise their sense of humour, try writing down, the two rappers names backwards), that weren't adverse to either, Weaving clever wordplay and deft rhymes, against whimsical playful ideas, and an almost nonsensical humour. (2) Having leftfield Producer (of 'Stetsasonic' fame) "Prince Paul" provide a lot of the musical ideas, image, direction, (and most importantly) sampling, that made up a large percentage of the album. Prince Paul's involved in the project was vital, because instead of collating Hip-Hop samples from the usual sources (Exactly how many times, has "James Brown's - Funky Drummer" been sampled in Hip-Hop??), he went further afield for his samples (much further), so a mixture of: pop, jazz, reggae, and psychedelia, Country, 70's soul, Rock (and, yes the obligatory 'James Brown' sample) were used to construct the musical part of the album.
And from this wildly eclectic ranges of samples, beats, loops.....songs were then built around, and thus the range is diverse, with lyrics ranging from social awareness ("Ghetto Thang") to stream of consciousness ("I Can Do Anything"), Through to brief, but creative musical interludes that break up the songs, (Can U keep A Secret?, De La Orgee, Description, Transmitting Live from mars), with the album peppered with a variety of songs that were strong enough to exist outside the structure of the album and work as standalone singles. "Say No Go", "The Magic Number", Me Myself & I, which sampled everyone from blue-eyed soul artists "Hall & Oates", Country legend "Johnny Cash", Adult-Rock duo "Steely Dan", all meticulously sampled and spliced with Hip-Hop beats to create a kaleidoscopic arrangement of Leftfield songs that shunned thumping beats and veered more towards innovative offbeat ideas and fast and loose humour.
But there were, (hidden deep) within the album, traces of a social consciousness, with songs dealing with more substaintial issues such as: true love ("Eye Know"), the debilitating effects of drugs ("Say No Go"), issues of Sex ("Buddy"), and social/neighourhood concerns ("Ghetto Thang"). But It would be (largely) fair to say that as deftly arranged and constructed as these tunes where, they weren't the majority of the album. And a lot of the split-second timing of the samples in songs, and clever in-jokes & various references are what most people remember them for.
When this album dropped, it was (and still is) a landmark album, all the cliches of Rap music were abandoned, it sounded like virtually nothing else at the time, It moved boundaries and pushed Hip-Hop into new and interesting directions....The Critics loved it, The General Public bought the album in droves, and all was Good, until.....
A minority of people (and Critics), decided that the 'Happy-go-Lucky' and 'Daisy Chain' themes and structure of the album, was deemed "uncool" & "over optimistic", and so the band on each successive album, gradually began to drop the playfulness and become more serious, and focused less on whimsical goofy Humour (The "De La Soul is Dead" album, being one of their most widely public efforts to move away from the persona of old). Unfortunately as great as their track record with albums has been, It has been a steady gradual case of "Diminishing Returns", with each album to failing to capture the overall energy and enthusiasm contained within this exceptional album. Sure, there's always people that are going to refer to them as "Hippy-Hoppers", but why is that considered a bad thing???......this is easily as important any any Hip-Hop album you care to mention, and no true Collection is complete without it.
Description of 3 Feet High & Rising
Import edition of the alternative rapper's seminal and groundbreaking 1989 debut. Currently available domestically on cassette only! Standard jewel case.De La's debut represented a new path for hip-hop, a reaction to conventions that had turned into clichés. It was friendly and playful enough to cross over to a pop audience (thanks to Prince Paul's production, which found the funk hiding inside Steely Dan and "Schoolhouse Rock"), but complicated and tough enough to be hugely influential in the hip-hop world. Cryptic but ecstatic, and sometimes sexy (especially the ingenious double-entendre "Buddy"), Trugoy and Posdnuos's lyrics invented a "new style of speak," dense with self-invented slang and metaphors. The hits, including "Say No Go" and "Me Myself And I," are delightful, but the little sketches and sound-experiments between them make the whole disc flow effortlessly. --Douglas Wolk
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