De La Soul - Classic or Dud?

The Twin Cities hereby cast all their votes for "classic."

I'd swear there's a thread around here about mature hip-hop that I might have even started but I can't find it.

notions, soothed the mood

the first album kicks the 2nd's ass 8 ways to tuesday

"'De La Soul is Dead' is a better album than '3 Feet High...'" is the worst CHALLENGING OPINION in music criti

three feet high and rising was the first
hip-hop album i ever bought. buhloone
mind state was the second. it would be
cool to say bionix was the last one. but
it wasn't. it was good, though. the slick
rick one. 'held down.' 'bionix.' those
other ones.

hip-hop people reviewing bionix all said
it sucked. indie rock type people reviewing
it said it was another classic from de
la soul. those are the only people who
reviewed it.

-- DK, Thursday, August 22, 2002 3:46 PM (5 years ago) Bookmark Link

o.O

i had a thing for making paper since papier-mache

dude you were the one that told me 3 Ft High was dylan's first rap album

I heard De La Soul Is Dead in its entirety before I heard Three Feet High and Rising in its entirety, which is part of the reason why I hold this allegedly controversial CHALLENGING OPINION.

its totally not a challenging opinion wtf people - but buhloone mind state is better than both of them anyway

i say this as someone who has listed to those three albums more than anyone on this board im sure

production on Buhloone is less unique than on 1st 2. They're all great. 2nd>>>1st>>>3rd.

buhloone mind state remains my pick too

3>2>1

but theyre all great obv

1st > 3rd > 2nd

I heard De La Soul Is Dead in its entirety before I heard Three Feet High and Rising in its entirety, which is part of the reason why I hold this allegedly controversial CHALLENGING OPINION.

this is what I assume of anyone who holds same

lol no i had 3 feet around when it cam out it kinda marked my devolution from someone who just listened to the radio and had a few albums to a music obsessive. i remember seeing the video for me myself and i on bet at a friends house and being all wtf is this must have! then dead was the last tape i had before i got a cd player. i taped ringringring off the radio before the album came out and was all wtf at the new sound but it grew on me fast. then when buhloon came out it was just <3<3<3

3 feet is nice but they got sooo much better at everything

3 feet is nice but they got sooo much better at everything

I pretty much agree with this.

so do I. 1st and 2nd are both more "fun" (having guru guest on a track will do that, though har har). 3rd I guess a lil TOO good ie refined.

(tho i guess having biz guest cancels out guru)

omglol i am watching de la videos on youtube omg!

http://static1.videosift.com/thumbs/d/el/De_La_Soul_Me_Myself_And_I.jpg

this hair whaaaa!

2>4>1=3

For a long time I wrote off the AOI Bionix lps, but on repeat listen I think they are tight. I saw them perform at DEMF in 01 and they were great.

they got better at smooth jazz soul jams. but the 1st album is alive in a way those that follow are not and it's got the best wordplay by far. also, i like hippies and the color yellow.

Buhloone Mind State is better than the first two. It's like desert island material.

arsenio dissed us but the crowed kept clapping http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lR-p_yMTFDY

Wrote something a couple of years ago on Buhloone, although they never even came close to recording boilerplate material.

it's got the best wordplay by far

gabz its fine if you like that one best but this is just demonstrably false - buhloon is 100% double entendres metaphors and allusions

i like the kiddie metaphors more than the adult metaphors, but there's a fair amount of adult stuff on the 1st one too

as a prince paul fan i'm partial to the first three with BMS being tops

'i am i be' for all time
buhloone rules

i love stakes is high

When I listen to "I Am I Be" I get chills; like top ten song ever.

otm

discovering that third de la album was when they really clicked for me, i think, and i started to actually have ideas about their music for the first time that really felt like my own rather than sort of blindly buying into one narrative or another, which i did when i heard the first two records ... i liked them but not enough to think about them. buhloone was kind of like a breakthrough (breakathrough?) where i realized De La were great and worth giving a shit about on a personal, rewind-this-record-over-and-over level rather than just paying my dues as a rap nerd by touching all the canon bases or whatever

i dont know if i think its the 'best' any more but its definitely the one de la record i most fondly associate w/ being a teenager and really getting rap, climbing up a neighbor's fire escape to watch the sun set on a rooftop w/ it playing in the headphones. good times

buhloone is kinda impersonal to me.... i gotta admit i love de la is dead just for having so many songs that are the shit and this big smart ass unified concept and i love stakes is high cuz it was the first de la album i actually got when it dropped but all of em are the shit including aoi ones and grind date

one joint i think is underrated for real is "held down" with cee-lo
http://youtube.com/watch?v=j-htszlfoDI

god, stakes is high is so fucking good, you people are clueless

just curious, how do you mean 'impersonal' - like to you personally, or the overall sound of the record?? to me tracks like 'i am i be' are exactly the opposite of that

stakes is the shit, its the first one that fits in the era of rap i came up on instead of weirdo early 90s daisy age skit rap... set the style for the whole late 90s rawkus underground shit too

i guess i mean impersonal that like dudes seem a lot less passionate on it compared to the other joints like is dead or stakes, and i dig angry de la more than like self satisfied chillin de la - buhloone just gets a lil too workmanlike without having the smarter grown folks shit you get from the aoi cds.... its still dope dont get me wrong but i think like beats rhymes & life does the same style about 10000x better

i dunno i feel like im talking outta my ass cuz i dont play that as much as the other cds so let me play it out & get back to yall with opinions4u

stakes is the shit, its the first one that fits in the era of rap i came up on instead of weirdo early 90s daisy age skit rap

duh. but i confess i don't own it. is most of the stuff better than 'all good'?

beats rhymes & life does the same style about 10000x better
damn! that's a lot of times better

stakes is high is great but it's the 1st one of theirs that had skippable tracks from the getgo.

aren't SiH and BR&L like the albums where they tried to sound like everyone else and therefore less deserving of any marginal distinction even if the flow was upped a notch?

didn't even know this was coming out today but I happen to be wearing my De La soul is dead tshirt

i really liked this album. pos is in top form, with some reveries that almost approach "i am i be" levels. my faves are the title track, the premier track ("en eff" w/ black thought), the q-tip track ("day in the sun"), and the bilal track near the end. the final stretch of the album, starting with "en eff," is incredibly strong.

Packing the album with guests makes sense, given the loss of 50% of your vocalists*, but it consistently feels like a hangout / block party with a bunch of pals swinging by, not cynical, calculated, or coping

And Mase stepping up as sideman on the other tracks works pretty well, acting like a little Greek chorus for Pos at times in an enhancement of his previous commentary cameos

*also nothing new for them obv

The way they bring up Dave's absence in that first skit is clever and heartbreaking. And then ending with a song that he produced, with just him rapping in a looser style is really something

Some of this is the remnants of the Pete Rock/Premier album they announced years ago and never finished, but they did a good job stringing it together into something new

The way they bring up Dave's absence in that first skit is clever and heartbreaking.

Absolutely. Choked up the first time I heard it. Giancarlo was in the audience at their Royal Albert Hall show in April 23, a coupla months after Dave passed. Pos spotted him from the stage and they had a brief reconnection; I got the impression they didn't know he'd be there.

UDONTSTOP slays me, especially that line about if they stop, Dave stops. Pos told me when I interviewed them last year that that's what Dave's family told them, re: whether they should continue after he passed: if De La Soul stops, then Dave stops, and that's (one of the reasons) why they're carrying on. It's a really strong LP, it gets super heartbreaking towards the end, it manages to balance the profound and the pop so keenly, as they always did. I could even imagine subsequent albums, sans Dave, working, as long as they stay in this honest, vulnerable place, and invite their friends and contemporaries to the table. Make DLS a generational thing, rather than a group. It's not quite as fine a post-bereavement late-period masterpiece as Than U 4 Your Service, but it's such a rewarding, uplifting listen.

Since you bring up Thank You for Your Service, I was gonna say this album reminds me so much of that one. Lot of similarities and both are quality

Kinda hope DLS continue to explore the kind of mid/late-life career that Tribe album hinted at. Also kinda wish Q-Tip would make another/more solo LPs, as his production on the LL Cool J album from last year just absolutely killed, and in the end I just wish he'd been the guy rhyming over those beats (sorry LL).

okay yeah this is something much more than a usual "stitch together scrap leftover verses with a bunch of guest star and new beats" posthumous hip hop album

that first sketch was amazing, started out so playful, very reminiscent of 3 Feet High and then the gut punch at the end

"sunny storms" is a such a great beat, very cool to see premier stepping out of his usual formula for something that actually fits de la soul

What a delight that y'all like it. I forgot this dropped on Friday, correcting this error now.

There are lots of bits on this that wouldn't feel out of place on the early albums. "Will Be" even sounds like a DLSID outtake.

yea i don't think it's a career highlight like 'we got it from here' was for tribe, but it's good enough to make that album a non-ridiculous comparison

the final stretch of the album, starting with "en eff," is incredibly strong.

otm, those six and "Run It Back" are my favorites. title track is so good, I figured the sample was some 70s rock song but didn't realize it was THAT song lol

"Will Be" has an almost "Roller Skating Jam Named Saturday" vibe, wish it were longer

yea i don't think it's a career highlight like 'we got it from here' was for tribe, but it's good enough to make that album a non-ridiculous comparison

there is also the fact they were both released after one of the three founding members passed away

and released in November after Election Day.

anyway this thing is fire, immediately one of my 2025's best.

Maseo currently playing records on TikTok

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZPHThPvEP8h9F-Bo19Q/

loving this album.

De La Soul on NPR Tiny Desk went up today, it’s so good you guys

and repping Dave w the mic & the nameplate & mase’s shirt <3 <3 ;_;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AVYDHTOixU

yes very good, thank you for sharing!

remember when de la was having licensing issues and so posted all of their music for free a few years back? and there was so much activity their download spot got deactivated? yeah, i remember thar too! it was an exciting time to be a fan, so i purchased extra juice on my dropbox so there could be an active link for folks here to grab some golden era classics. even with that, the link saw too much activity and i was charged extra on my account. i didn't care, i'm glad folks here got access; everyone needs to hear that stuff at least once imo. the rub was not when none of you said thank you (and honestly why would you? it was just a random dropbox link), but when i was later accused of being racist while mourning dave's passing in earnest.

you probably could have just linked the Russian bootleg site that they’d downloaded the mp3s from tbf

Last year's album, I'm happy to report, still rips.

curious if anyone's got it on vinyl, heard the pressing quality was not so good, but there are like 6 different variants out there

Discogs reviews suggest the yellow pressing is bad, others are better. But holding off till I hear more info. Album itself is killer, looking forward to owning it tbh.

I love this album, one of their three best.

Yeah, it's too bad this seemed to get mostly ignored last year.

I got the blue pressing and it sounds fine, not great. But what a fantastic album. The title track goes so hard in the wake of bereavement and asks all the right questions. Ending on a Dave track is even more of a gut-punch than Giancarlo Esposito's repeated call of "Dave? Dave? Dave?" in the opening skit.

Hopefully more people will catch up to it. I actually went to the album launch in their pop-up shop and it was crazy how many fans tried to get in - you'd think that would reflect bigger attention later on, but I just checked the yearendlists site and they only had four mentions, three of which were in the bottom echelons of said lists:

#8 The 25 Best Albums of 2025: The Ringer
#39 Top 50 Albums of 2025: Anthony Fantano: The Needle Drop
#40 The 50 Best Albums of 2025: Complex
#51 Top 55 Albums of 2025: Brooklyn Vegan

Pete Rock even discussed his contributions in his talk last year, and he was very proud of what De La Soul did with it.