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Tag: De La Soul

  • Respect Due: De La Soul

    Greatest group in hip-hop history? Well, an argument can be made against that.

    Most consistent group in hip-hop history? Well, let’s see. Run-DMC peaked early and had fallen off completely by their fifth album. A Tribe Called Quest suffered a complete quality collapse with “Beats, Rhymes & Life”, made a slight comeback with “The Love Movement”, and then parted ways. Public Enemy has been decidedly average since “Apocalypse ’91”. The only other hip-hop groups who deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Long Island’s De La Soul when it comes to consistency are kindred spirits The Beastie Boys, and their stylistic followers OutKast and The Roots.

    For two decades now, over the course of 7 studio albums, Pos, Dave and Maseo have given us incredibly musical, occasionally hilarious, sometimes message-filled and always interesting music. Written off as one-note hippies by rap’s harder element during the days of “the D.A.I.S.Y. Age” and “3 Feet High & Rising”, they returned with the stunning “De La Soul is Dead”, an unheralded contender for best rap album of all time. ’93 brought the obtuse, cranky “Buhloone Mind State”, which brought the half decade of collaboration with equally insane producer Prince Paul to a close. “Stakes is High” and “AOI: Mosaic Thump” are solid albums that any other band would be pleased to have as the worst albums in their catalog, while they restored their awesomeness (as opposed to just pretty good-ness) with “AOI2: Bionix”, “The Grind Date”, and a long-deserved Grammy for their collaboration with Gorillaz on “Feel Good, Inc.”

    Along the way, De La has blazed trails musical and lyrical. “3 Feet High” was the first album to turn sampling into an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink art. Their first three albums (even after “3 Feet High” opened up an unclose-able can of worms in terms of sampling laws) reveal a maverick (and not John McCain maverick)’s love of music, with everyone from Steely Dan and Hall & Oates to The Jarmels to Slave and Bob Marley being thrown into the mix. De La has also released some of the warmest sex/love songs in hip-hop history (“Buddy”, “Baby Phat”), the single most chilling song about child abuse ever recorded (“Millie Pulled a Pistol on Santa”), pioneered the grown-folks hip-hop movement with their last two albums, and have collaborated with everyone from Common to Maceo Parker to Teenage Fanclub in the process.

    VH-1’s Hip Hop Honors finally gave De La some long-deserved props in their show this year, as everyone from Q-Tip to fellow Long Islanders Public Enemy showed up to deliver a fun and stirring tribute. Then De La’s three members, who have laid low for a couple of years without a contract and with several fairly major health issues, popped up on stage together and ripped it (one of hip-hop’s better live acts, they’re one of the handful of rap artists with a live album worth checking out). Hopefully the future brings more great De La Music, but the classics recorded over the past twenty years have already done more than enough to secure De La Soul’s place in not only rap, but musical history.

  • VH-1 Hip Hop Honors ’08 – Quick Thoughts

    Unless I’m mistaken, I don’t think anyone on this site talked about the Hip Hop Honors show from earlier in the week. I know that Money Mike was possibly not even going to be able to watch the show until later in the week. I wasn’t able to live blog it, but did get to catch most of it.

    I love this concept, this show, and everything about why VH-1 does this show. You wonder why VH-1 does this and not say, MTV or BET, or even a network channel.

    What happens when I watch this show (and previous years as well) is that I smile. I simply smile throughout the entire thing. It reminds me of when and why I fell in love with hip hop in the first place. We hip hop fans are a funny bunch. We dislike far more of the current music that hip hop artists produce today than we like. The music from our youth will always be better than what’s out now. But damnit, if you talk bad about the art that we love, get ready to defend your stance. For hours. We are a passionate bunch. We’ve had to sell people on the fact that being an emcee is just as much of a honed skill as anything else. You don’t think so? Try rapping. We’ve had to let those know that while Whitney Houston’s voice is a gift, so is Jay-Z’s flow. And we never feel as if anyone thinks our music is on an equal plane as rock music. All of those things come back to me when I watch this show. Every year.

    The cool thing about this show is that it’s a show of acknowledgment. You can argue as to why certain people are honored earlier than others (I’m sure being able to show up with your crew intact is one of the reasons), but really, I don’t care. Hopefully, all the right folks will be honored eventually. This year, Cypress Hill, De La Soul, Naughty By Nature, Slick Rick, and Too Short were honored. As has been the case with the previous shows, to “honor” the hip hop legends, current and former hip hop stars come out and perform some of the honorees previous hits. And then the legends themselves get on stage. It was great to see Slick Rick on stage performing from his throne. Cypress Hill got the show started off with a bang and had a great live performance. And how did they get Naughty By Nature back together? I thought Treach and them didn’t get a long? But I was probably most excited to see De La’s performance, and I’ve included that below.

    Hopefully VH-1 continues to run this show. For people like me and those who are much bigger fans of the culture and the music, it’s maybe the best thing that VH-1 has done or will ever do. Hopefully we’ll get Money Mike’s thoughts when he gets the chance to watch the show.

    You can watch it online if you didn’t catch it on the tube at VH-1.com or check their schedule to see when they are showing it again.

  • The Sunday Shuffle: Trying People

    Who knew sitting on your ass could be so exhausting? After a day at the beach, I’m maxin’ and relaxin’ and ready for another edition of the Sunday Shuffle. Let’s get started!!

    Track 1: “Room To Breathe” by Downtown Science
    Downtown Science was a rap group consisting of Sam Sever (who at that point was best known as one of 3rd Bass’s producers) and Bosco Money (who had one of the most unfortunate rap handles ever invented). It took me ages to track this CD down on half.com, as it’s been out of print for ages. This song has a very airy quality to it with a looped piano riff and a fairly easygoing backbeat for the average hip-hop record. I like it more for the beat than anything else. Another thing worth noting is that Bosco Money sounds a LOT like 3rd Bass’s MC Serch. This album is also notable for featuring the recording debut of noted female MC The Lady of Rage. Wonder if she’s still rockin’ rough and stuff with her Afro puffs.

    2. “Everloving” by Moby
    “Play” was Moby’s lightning in a bottle. I haven’t particularly cared for anything before or since (actually, I kinda gave up on him after being completely unimpressed by “Hotel”), but, damn, “Play” is such a good album. This song has a very hazy, new age-ish quality to it, like a very slightly more caffeinated Enigma (without the Gregorian monk chants).

    3. “My Ex-Girlfriend” by Tony! Toni! Tone!
    “Sons of Soul” is one of the five best R&B albums of the Nineties. The smoothness of this track sort of obscures the fact that the chorus of the song goes “My ex-girlfriend is a ho”. It comes off as more funny than misogynistic. It’s got a pretty neat doo-woppy mid-section, too. Damn, what happened to the R&B band? There’s Mint Condition, The Roots, and…

    I guess it ain’t cool for black folks to play instruments anymore.

    Track 4: “I Miss You” by Bjork
    OK, Bjork’s always been kind of weird, but as her career has progressed, her albums have gotten more and more obtuse. Her first couple of albums at least placed her weirdness in a danceable, poppy framework. Now, it’s basically just like “I don’t get it”. I hate most dance music made after 1990, but this and the rest of “Debut” is pretty damn good. Wacky horn part too.

    Track 5: “Diamonds & Pearls” by Prince & the New Power Generation
    This is one of the few songs-perhaps the ONLY song-where Prince plays second fiddle to another artist. In this case, Rosie Gaines hits this one out of the park. It’s one of Prince’s more lyrically slight songs, but this is one of those cases where the feeling overrules the somewhat Hallmark-ish sentiments. I’d post the video, but I don’t want to feel Prince’s high heel in my ass, so let’s just skip it for right now.

    Track 6: “Trying People” by De La Soul
    Hip-hop isn’t exactly overflowing with tearjerkers, but this song is near the top of my list. Over a dreamlike Laura Nyro sample (this song was one of several things that made me investigate her music further), Pos and Dave deliver subdued, mature meditations on life. Sounds simple enough, but man, rarely is hip-hop so nakedly emotional. Yet another stamp on De La Soul’s status as the most criminally underrated hip-hop act EVER.

    Track 7: “Possibly Maybe” by Bjork
    Wow…I wasn’t expecting iTunes to go Bjork crazy on me tonight. After the relative nuttiness of “I Miss You”, “Possibly Maybe” is the calming rain after. Just Bjork and a heartbeat of a drum machine. A perfect way to end this week’s seven. Good night.