De La Soul
At the time of its 1989 release, De La Soul's debut album, 3 Feet High and Rising, was hailed as the future of hip-hop. With its colorful, neo-psychedelic collage of samples and styles, plus the Long Island trio's low-key, clever rhymes and goofy humor, the album sounded like nothing else in hip-hop. Where most of their contemporaries drew directly from old-school rap, funk, or Public Enemy's dense sonic barrage, De La Soul were gentler and more eclectic, taking in not only funk and soul, but also pop, jazz, reggae, and psychedelia. Thoug...[more]
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VINYL FORMAT. The seminal debut LP, 1989 was the year - the daisy age in full effect! Pressed on high quality loud double vinyl, full color picture sleeve, 23 tracks (with hilarious interludes) including "Magic Number," "Eye Know," "Say No Go," "Plug Tunin," "Buddy," "Me Myself and I," "Ghetto Thang" and more!
LP $17.99
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VINYL FORMAT. De La Soul's second album, originally released in 1991, was initially received poorly by the press and their fans due to its immediate rejection of the 'daisy-age' image created by their debut LP. In the years since, however, it has come to be accepted as a stone classic that may even surpass the feel-good jams of Three Feet High And Rising with its expansive scope and more diverse subject matter (drug addiction, incest, poseurs, in addition to the more expected, light-hearted material) [ read more ]
LP $17.99
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Cage Sonatas and Interludes / A Book Of Music, Catheters Build a Home b/w Hang Up, Richard Hell and the Voidoids Blank Generation
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"No longer backed by record companies but back by popular demand" raps Posdnuos in "Freedom Train," the penultimate song on De La Soul's label-less mixtape Impossible Mission: TV Series, Pt. 1, a collection of older previously unreleased tracks, as well as new material, all of which helps to firmly establish the group as one of hip-hop's legends. Not that Impossible Mission compares to 3 Feet High and Rising or De La Soul Is Dead or even AOI: Bionix, because it doesn't -- those we [ read more ]
CD $17.08
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From the days of the earliest Cold Crush battle tapes, live hip-hop on record has been a sketchy proposition. There's simply no way to transmit the energy and community feeling of a live show onto wax or tape or disc, and sludgy audio quality has rarely convinced anyone other than the hardcore to risk an investment. For reasons unknown, De La Soul, those ambassadors of hip-hop exuberance despite their professorial inclinations, were gifted by Tommy Boy/Rhino with a release of one of their [ read more ]
CD $13.26
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The best thing about De La Mix Tape: Remixes, Rarities and Classics is that it's easy access to some rare B-sides, appearances on other artists' albums, and promo tracks. Unfortunately, it's not all of them, but the big find is the instrumental B-side "Piles and Piles of Demo Tapes Bi-Da Miles," with its rock-solid groove and crazy flute solo. The rest of the so-so rare tracks are upstaged by the group's appearances with other artists, including the great "More Than U Know" from Prince Paul's {^ [ read more ]
CD $13.26
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De La Soul were interrupted just before they could deliver the third volume in their AOI series -- projected to be a DJ album -- to Tommy Boy. (The label perhaps bailed out from a 15-year relationship precisely because the group was going to release such a commercially bankrupt title, one that was planned instead to appear on an independent label run by Maseo.) De La Soul quickly realized they couldn't go ahead with the plan after signing their AOI label to Sanctuary, so they [ read more ]
CD $13.28
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A singles collection from the authors of hip-hop's greatest full-length? True, De La Soul may not be as desperate for this type of compilation as a notoriously album-weak rapper like Busta Rhymes, but Rhino's Timeless: The Singles Collection is an excellent alternate look at one of alternative rap's finest crews. As with nearly every other Rhino compilation to hit the shelves, it's presented in chronological order, with no major (or minor) highlights missing, emphasizing the best period [ read more ]
CD $13.28
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A singles collection from the authors of hip-hop's greatest full-length? True, De La Soul may not be as desperate for this type of compilation as a notoriously album-weak rapper like Busta Rhymes, but Rhino's Timeless: The Singles Collection is an excellent alternate look at one of alternative rap's finest crews. As with nearly every other Rhino compilation to hit the shelves, it's presented in chronological order, with no major (or minor) highlights missing, emphasizing the best period [ read more ]
CD $25.63
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De La Soul came storming back after four years of recording inactivity -- and practically a decade out of the hip-hop limelight -- with a promise to release three full albums in a series they dubbed Art Official Intelligence. From the first volume, Mosaic Thump comes some hip-hop/soul with "U Can Do (Life)." Posdnuos' raps are occasionally thoughtful and clever, but he seems obsessed with being as hardcore as DMX or Jay-Z. There are a few solid productions by outsiders (Ad Lib's {&"M [ read more ]
CD $13.28
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Stakes Is High is often overshadowed by its predecessors in the De La Soul discography and, upon its release, it was lost in a summer of great import and consequence. Released on the same day as Nas' alter-ego epic It Was Written and sandwiched between albums like Jay-Z's Reasonable Doubt and OutKast's ATLiens, it's very possible that Stakes Is High didn't get its rightful burn in respective tape decks and CD players. Aside from that, hip-hop was fully embroiled in the East Coast [ read more ]
CD $13.28