12. De La Soul3 Feet High And Rising
Where do I start with De La Soul? I heard the ‘Plug Tunin’’ 12” first of all and I was thinking, "What is this?" It sounded like nothing I’d ever heard before, but I liked it. I was blown away. Then Dave Dorrell and CJ Mackintosh and people like that started doing remixes of their stuff and they were great remixes, but when the album dropped and there were all those segue ways and links that took you on a journey – that was something we’d never heard before. It was the first of its kind. It changed the face of hip-hop albums for a good few years. The effect was so massive that even they were a bit thrown; hence De La Soul Is Dead and everything that followed it, because they got tied into that whole hippy thing. But when you go into it, lyrically it’s next level. I class Dave and Pos as the John Coltranes of rap. The way that they write – as lyricists, the melodies they have, the pictures that they paint… it’s been consistent throughout their whole career. 3 Feet High And Rising is such a cornerstone in hip-hop.
