But it's a comment I overheard in the crowd that still scars me.
During Gorillaz's headlining set, when Damon Albarn and his cavalcade of musicians started to play "Feel Good Inc.," a trio of special guests walked onto the stage to let out the track's opening sinister laugh. A stranger turned to me and said, "Imagine being famous just for laughing." Inside, I died a million deaths, but I somehow managed to eke out, "That's De La Soul. They're kind of legendary."
Consider this a more thoughtful response if I had 15 years to consider what makes De La so special.
The Power of Three
Formed in 1988 by Trugoy the Dove, Maseo, and Posdnuos, De La Soul was made up of three Long Island teenagers who followed the magical tradition among New York City's best hip-hop acts like Run-DMC and Beastie Boys of having three members."Three, that's the magic number" were the first words rapped on an album that highlighted their trinity with the title 3 Feet High and Rising. Upbeat and contagious, it broke ground in ways we now take for granted. Producer Prince Paul inserted unlikely samples, throwing in the yacht rock of Steely Dan next to the grunts of James Brown, opening up possibilities that any sound in human history was available to be rapped over. For better or worse, their debut record also introduced the idea of doing comedic skits between songs with a faux game show performed between tracks, with De La Soul's influence later being heard in acts from Outkast to Kendrick Lamar.
3 Feet High and Rising was the trio's most financially successful album, topping the rap charts and even making the top 25 of the pop charts based in part on the infectious flower-powered music video for "Me Myself and I," which gained them the reputation of being the hippies of hip-hop.
The young members of De La Soul didn't cherish that reputation. To rebel, they named their 1991 sophomore record De La Soul Is Dead with a tipped-over, cracked flowerpot on the cover. They called out the bubblegum rap of Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer, but despite the reinvention agenda of the album title and artwork, De La Soul Is Dead follows the magical formula of 3 Feet. There are more comedy skits, unlikely samples from Tom Waits and Serge Gainsbourg, and tons of earworms from "A Roller Skating Jam Named 'Saturdays'" to the chorus of "Bitties in the BK Lounge."
Late-Stage De La Soul
It took 1993's Buhloone Mindstate for them to crystallize all their disappointments with the music industry into sublime musicality. From the opening, where they chant, "It might blow up, but it won't go pop," they've made peace that the songs they want to create might not be what the industry wants to push, but they'll go down fighting. There's no longer a need to separate the comedy from the music, mixing wit into the lyrics and biting samples of dialogue instead of slowing things down with stand-alone skits you'll want to skip over after the eighth listen.They always had big-time guest artists in Q-Tip and later Common and Mos Def, but they got downright avante-garde with the guests on Buhloone Mindstate. They give legendary horn player Maceo Parker a full five-minute instrumental in "I Be Blowin'," with the only voice being the sound of children playing. Then they let Japanese hip-hop act Scha Dara Parr go nuts in their native language before De La Soul return with all their rage in "Ego Trippin' (Part Two)."
Stakes Is High, released in 1996, is another must-listen. Prince Paul moved on, so the sonic palette isn't quite as versatile, but the emcees are all at the top of their game. Trugoy, Maseo, and Posdnuos were still in their twenties, but they felt they were relegated to the old school. With dexterity and creativity, they still had plenty to say, especially about how hip-hop didn't need to fit into whatever cookie-cutter format was being pushed. Around this time, their live show became as good as any in hop-hop, with shows often stretching to close to three hours, leaving their fans dancing late into the night.
Besides the aforementioned Gorillaz collaborations, De La Soul put out five other records, but two years ago, tragedy struck when Trugoy died at 54 years old. Unlike A Tribe Called Quest and the Beastie Boys, who called it quits when losing a founding member, De La has decided to carry on. It's unclear how they will make up for the crucial missing ingredient of Trugoy when they perform at the Adrienne Arsht Center on Saturday, February 22. Vibe reported that during a recent New York show, Talib Kweli stood in for Trugoy, but he seems to be an impossible ingredient to replace, especially when the recipe has always been that three is the magic number. But magic is still what I expect from a group that has always been so much more than a sinister laugh.
De La Soul. With Stretch Armstrong. 8 p.m. Saturday, February 22, at Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami; 305-949-6722; arshtcenter.org. Tickets cost $45 to $125.
