De La Soul’s debut album was a complete novelty in 1989. In stark comparison to the overtly political It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back by Public Enemy that dropped a year prior, as well as the burgeoning Gangsta Rap scene that was experiencing a meteoric rise towards the end of the decade, 3 Feet High and Rising broke new ground by introducing a decidedly positive and upbeat message. They married that message with a heavy dose of off-kilter samples that ranged from genres like doo-wop, children’s music, psychedelic rock, and funk, giving the whole experience an enjoyably preposterous tone. That was further punctuated with references to obscure subject matter that ran the gamut from the surreal to the mundane (not too many hip hop songs today feature a verse detailing a friend’s struggles with dandruff, as an example), as well as one of hip hop’s first recorded example of using skits in between full-length songs to tie everything together. The result is a noteworthy album that begs to be listened to in full over an extended session and one of hip-hop’s earliest contributions to artistic pop music.
Standout Songs: “Me Myself and I”, “The Magic Number”, “Eye Know”, “Ghetto Thang”
