DE LA SOUL ARE DEAD?

Rip It Up, Issue 168, 1 July 1991, Page 18

DE LA SOUL ARE DEAD?

De La Soul's history is a familiar one, not only to rap fans but to anyone vaguely concerned about the state of music in these modern times; Still, it seems sort of hard to believe when you look at it. A bunch of teenagers from Long Island taking the rap world by storm with an album that was the complete antithesis of the dick grabbing tough guy rap that was so prevalent is pretty implausible, but for them to go on and successfully manage the dreaded 'crossover' into the pop world without compromising their principles was pretty much unheard of.

Best of all was the concept of rap fans, pop fans, anyone buying an album built around samples that went from Parliament through to Steely Dan. It's a funny old business, this rock and roll, and De La Soul made it just that much more funny. Anyway, the story didn't end there. De La Soul were acclaimed as innovators, castigated as being an atrocious live act and generally held up as the fathers of a whole new era

in rap. They inspired a whole slew of similar 'hippy-hop' acts, some of whom, like Tribe Called Quest, had been coming from the same laid back trip all along and just found themselves noticed while others were just downright opportunistic. In traditional music business fashion the backlash kicked in, the sound was overworked and all those African medallions became just as cliched as the gold ropes had been. Then just

as it all looked utterly sour, De La Soul reappeared and declared the Daisy Age dead. They said they had matured, they were no longer 'business virgins', they were back on a new roll with a new album, De La Soul Is Dead. So what was it that De La Soul feel they did wrong? All I can see was too much dumb enthusiasm. "Especially now that we're very much aware of what happends. We see it in a lot of younger groups coming up. When you first get out there you're happy just to be on wax. I mean, we had wanted to do this for years. It was like when you're young and want to be a fireman, you know? We were actually going to be doing it, it was really going to happen. So you're flying high all the way, you're not paying any attention to now many records you're selling or if you go to this radio station they'll play your record and if you don't they won't, stuff like that. It's more like 'Oh, wow my voice is going to be on the air, my record is going to be on the air'. So with us

and most every other group you're just happy to be out there and have people know your stuff, you're not focusing on the business side of it, like controlling your marketing. But now we're aware of that so we treat both sides of us even, we treat the busines side the same as we treat the creative side."

Posdnuos seems a friendly, articulate sort of guy despite the growing up in public so why all this De La Soul Is Dead behaviour?

"We wanted to bring across a different vibe than Three Feet High And Rising because De La Soul, all of us in the group, to us it's about longevity and we didn't want to come about with the same style as the last. We always said we'd come across with something different and it worked out a bit harder edged. The vibe on the last album was much softer, especially compared to a lot of the albums that were out at the time like NWA, Big Daddy Kane or even PE. They were a lot more angry and we steered away from that. But now we're doing it a bit harder, the vibe is changing." Longevity is sort of a weird thing with rap acts. Ever since the real early days people have been saying 'lt's just a passing fad' and even the acts themselves are far from positive — I remember the guy from EPMD saying he didn't think they had more than one album in them, yet EPMD, Public Enemy, LL Cool J — all these acts have put out at least three good albums, and now De La Soul seem well on the way to doing the same thing. "With us, we don't try to make music for others, we make it for us but at the same time we are aware of what's going on in the music industry, what people are putting out. A lot of groups will do one album which comes from them, but with the next album the record company will influence them, they might want to try something new but the record company will say no, let's continue to use the same ingredient. It's like with us, could have played it safe and put out another Three Feet High And Rising and been safe but you get tired of that. And often you do something different than a lot of rappers around you, new or old. but record companies will often want you to stick with what hit. They don't want an artist to get too far away from what was a hit for them.

They're not focusing on too much experimenting, they know that when you used that type of music it was a hit, so they're like 'Let's make sure

there's a couple of jams like that on the album'. That's what record

companies are about, whereas we want to cover the whole sphere of music, we want to be in this for a

while." That shouldn't be too much of a problem for De La Soul, as De La Soul Is Dead seems like fulfilling all its promise, so far selling well and getting a fair bit of critical acclaim in US and UK. Despite what Pos claims about the new direction the album is really a step on from Three Feet

High And Rising but still recognisably De La Soul. Gone is a lot of the 'we love everyone' feel but the hallmarks of De La Soul still remain, some stupid skits and track fillers that link the real songs and the brilliantly diverse and funky samples that give De La Soul so much of their edge in the musical department. Who else is going to use samples that range from James Brown and Bob James through to the El Dorados and children's songs like 'Please Porridge'?

"The first album was about our parents' influence, coming from our parents collection and what was in our households. We were getting into hanging around second hand record stores and picking up a lot of vinyl to find stuff, even going next door to our neighbours and taking all their records to get the right sound, so we were developing these sort of skills at finding sounds. Now we're going on tour so when we go overseas I'd be taking a big bag with me, knowing I was going to be

finding stuff and that's where a lot of stuff on this album comes from."

A lot of input, especially musically, seems to come from Prince Paul who takes the role of producer to the point of almost being the fourth member of the group.

"Yeah, without a doubt. When we first began to work with Paul he was very much involved in his work in relation to Stetsaasonic, but a lot of his ideas he wanted to put across

with his group didn't work with Stets but coincided with what we wanted to do. So that's how we clicked as

well. We worked on a lot of things he wanted to try and it all worked out real well for all of us."

Another important part of the De La Soul make up has been the little stings, skits, playlets, utter nuisances or whatever you want to call them (personally I'd go with that last

description). Slotted in between songs on the album they've become instantly recognisable as De La Soul moments and annoying though they are the flow and content is

undeniably sharp. For instance, a most un-Daisy track dissing the local 'bitties' evolves into a full scale Otis Redding/Carla Thomas style

exchange between one of the girls and Mase with, you guessed it, 'Tramp' as the backbeat. So where did the concept of the skit come from?

"I really don't know. We would just make tapes in Mase's basement, like even before me and Dove got into trying to make songs in the house we would do funny skits. So back in the day when it was about cutting up two beats and rhyming on them we would do that but we would also

have Dove cut up beats and just say real dumb crazy things or we'd find a real old jazz record that might have a real substantial beat then just talk stupid over it. Back then we were in that mode of doing real funny stuff so when it came time for the first 12" which was 'Plug Tunin" we put something real crazy on it which was a skit called 'Dan Stuckie'.

So I mean the skits have originated from way back then, they've naturally flowed onto the last album and because the skits came off so well on Three Feet High And Rising it would have been hard not to

include them on this album so they ended up on there." Posdnous mentions hanging out in each other's basements, which is sort of where De La Soul began. These guys were just three friends from suburban Long Island who started jamming together much like damn near any other band you care to name. Yet these inauspicious beginnings are the source of much amusement to a lot of magazines as it seems it is not considered hard to be from Long Island. This is sort of strange as not only are Public Enemy and EPMD from Long Island, most of the criticism seems to come from

effete middle class Englishmen who aren't exactly renowned for their own hardness. What do De La Soul make of these attacks on their credibility? "Basically, the way I see it is that a lot of people from Long Island have a good inside on both worlds. A lot of kids from the Bronx, they've never seen what goes on in Long Island while the majority of kids from Long Island are from the city so we can talk about both sides of what's going on. Like, I've spent a lot of my life in Long Island but I was born in the

Bronx and I still have real close ties to what's going on. I lived in buildings that were due to be condemmed. I saw the violence going on outside my window, I lived that. People from the Bronx often just stay in the Bronx, they never see the rest of life. So a lot of rappers from Long Island can talk about both sides, they know what's going on and can write from a soft edge but also can come from a harder edge as well." It's always good to save the nasty questions to last so I let Pos get way relaxed before hitting him with this one. What do you see in the future for Rap and for De La Soul? "Man, that is kinda nasty! I like to see more happen from a live point of view, it's the live show thing. I wish people would take more time to . work the live shows. We've been through that, we've been criticised for our live shows but we've now worked out that problem. I mean, it's not all about dancing on the stage and being Hammer. I mean, that works for him but you should find out what works for you and apply it visually. Like with us we do a lot of skits and theatrics so we're going to apply that to our show. I wish the live thing would improve which will lead to better venues. Like now over here in the States it's hard to get a big tour going due to a lot of things like violence but also people say 'Well, I can see this guy's video and live he doesn't do half of that'. So the live part of rap could be much better, which would lead to all rap becoming that much better."

KIRK GEE