3 Feet High and Rising

It's genuinely heartbreaking that this album isn't on any streaming services, because it means that De La Soul has fallen out of the conversation of greatest 80s and 90s hip hop groups. This album, their debut, is absolutely brilliant. Funny, corny, listenable. It influenced so many modern artists, and I didn't realize before hearing it how much my favorite albums (such as Wildflower, by the Avalanches) are based on it. I can't identify a favorite song or moment, because they're all so good. This is an instant 5/5 for me, and it's by far the best album on this list that I'd never listened to before.

Very fun and incredibly clever. Many reviews compare this record to Sgt. Pepper but for hip pop. The comparison is completely understandable. Very fun concept album with great lyricism and wonderful production. The album does not drag even with the track-listing being more than an hour long. The album just feels like a group of friends having fun on the mic and in the studio. Favorite Track: Magic Number Least Favorite Track: De La Orgee

One of the best hip hop albums on this list. The game show stuff was a really fun theme throughout. Great lyrics, samples, and beats. Plus Q-tip!

They are clearly having so much fun making this album. The friendly comedy sketches. The playful dissing (“everybody in the world, you got dandruff”, “you got doo doo in your pocket”). Wild to hear so many samples out of their context (Otis Reddings SOTDOTB whistle track in “Eye Know”). Crazy to think they made this before technology made it way easy. Just a damn fun album. The beats are hypnotizing. I could listen to the instrumental of “Plug Tunin’” for hours. As the album marches on they get bolder when it comes to the explicit content. Problematic for the suburbs in 1989 I’m sure. When “Me, Myself and I” drops toward the end, I got excited because I finally knew a song. That one has been there my whole life, hanging on the wall, sprucing things up. I’ll be coming back to this for sure.

Wonderful, if it's not the Sgt Pepper's of hip-hop, it is the Dark Side of the Moon of hip-hop! Absolute genius, even if it's not on Spotify

How many times did the Batmobile catch a flat???

What a fun listen! This album is cited in this site for being of the called "Golden Age of Hip Hop" for a good reason. With a very original concept, a great sense of humour and the incorporation of many different genres from funk to rap rock, this album is a true masterpiece. My only issue is: why tf isn't this album on Spotify? It's so sad that this fun piece of hip hop history hadn't made it to the biggest music streaming service.

Top 10 all time. At Least

A fantastic and influential debut album from a talented trio, bringing a new sound and image to hip hop (one somewhat rebuked on their follow up De La Soul is Dead) and recalling the earlier days of classic hip hop. There are so many classic tracks here and is a showcase for the art of sampling, creating something new from something old. Three Is The Magic Number and Me, Myself and I are wicked party tracks, Eye Know is a surprisingly touching hip hop love song and Buddy is an energetic posse cut with like minded acts Jungle Brothers and Q Tip (but seek out the superior 12 inch remix with Phife Dawg, Queen Latifah and Monie Love plus a Kazoo horn section!). The downsides are an obsession with body odour and bad breath and a slew of skits and in jokes which amuse the band but nobody else. For this, a star was almost docked but my love for the band and for some even greater albums that followed since (Buhloone Mindstate, De La Soul is Dead) five stars are coming De La’s way.

This sounded unlike anything else when I first bought it back in 1989. It's the loved up response to a West Coast rap scene that was heading down the gangster route. I knew which direction I wanted to turn to. Hip Hop concept albums should usually be avoided. But the dialogue and in-jokes aren't annoying, They keep the Daisy Age feel flowing thoughout. There's still room for politics with It's a Ghetto Thing. Plus there's also personal politics on Say No Go. This should be a SIX star album.

Can only listen to half on YouTube as album is not available on other streaming platforms

Last night, I had a dream. There's this woman - young, cool, big hair - driving down a packed New York street in a car with friends. Windows are down, sky is blue, there's an array of kitsch memorabilia in the back and on the dashboard. Hanging off the rear view mirror is a talking wireless speaker, probably voiced by Eddie Murphy. He yells that he wants to be played, and opts for De La Soul's "Me, Myself and I". There follows an extended dance sequence in which the woman driving the car, and then everybody around her, jumps out of their cars and dances on the roofs. Like that bit in "La La Land", but better, because… well, because it's soundtracked by De La Soul. And so I rest my case: after just a couple of days of listening, "3 Feet High and Rising" is an album with the power to send good vibes deep into the subconscious. Life is made surreal, technicolour, magical and fun with just an hour a day around these folks. That's something special. De La Soul's first full-length album is often credited as one of the progenitors of hip-hop's golden age. Besides the invader-of-my-dreams-smash-hit "Me Myself and I", there's "Eye Know", which draws together samples of Steely Dan and Otis Redding into a ecstatic, sunny jam. "The Magic Number" fuses Schoolhouse Rock with a drum sample originally from Led Zeppelin, while "Potholes in my Lawn", an allegory for other people stealing lines from the group, throws in a yodelling interlude for good measure. Two of the other hits, "Plug Tuning" and "Buddy" (with A Tribe Called Quest's Q-Tip), are more studied cool, but still get me nodding along every time. My other favourite tracks include "Tread Water", a spiritual journey disguised as an Alice in Wonderland-esque nursery rhyme, and "Change in Speak", with its irresistible horns and wriggling bassline sample. That's quite a hit ratio. While many of the rhymes may be sneered at by serious hip-hop heads (there's an awful lot of nursery-rhyme style trochaic meter, "De-la" prefixes and totally unserious tangents), the sense of fun cannot be surpassed and overrides everything. The humour is on point here: the quiz show framework baffled me at first but then won me over by the fourth or fifth listen. The schoolboy style chants like "Can U Keep A Secret", "Take It Off" and "Do as De-La Does" are ridiculous, but winningly high-spirited. And the interlude midway through "Jenifa Taught Me", in which little Darwin breaks into a rendition of "Chopsticks" while the rest of the group cheer him on, never fails to make me smile. This is my favourite hip-hop album on the list so far, and is going to be hard to top.

I liked it a lot. I listened to it twice (had it on in the background). I'm a huge fan of old school hip hop and this was something I wasn't very aware of. I like Heiroglyphics a lot, so this was a nice treat.

Pot holes on my lawn. Fun sing along 90s hip hop. I miss this era of rap music. Creative samples and scratching

Fantastic hip hop album. The Steely Dan sample song was my favorite

I remembered I liked this, but I liked it better than I remembered. Sounds newer and fresher than it is. Favorite song: Eye know

Despite never listening, I have heard good things about De La Soul. They were only recently put on Spotify due to sample-clearing issues, which may explain the blind spot for me and modern listeners. I like alternative hip hop and this album could be considered the genesis of that subgenre. It's a fun listen, and they were clearly having fun messing around making this. You can hear its influence on many modern projects. I really dug the "sampledelia" instrumentals, extra impressive since this was before easy sampling tech. I found some of the dialogue and in-jokes kind of corny and annoying, and this album holds the dubious distinction for inventing the dreaded "rap skit." The lyrics sometimes almost gave me the juvenile vibe of a "t3h PeNgU1N oF d00m" (soooo randommm). I'll blame my lack of lyrical connection on unfamiliarity, which will improve on subsequent listens now that it's on Spotify. The music is just too good and the album too influential on a genre I like to rate it a 3. *Saw a couple reviews that said this was "hip hop's Sgt. Pepper" and the timing is ironic because we got Sgt. Pepper the following day.*

Eh if this was a tribe called quest I wouldn't have been able to tell difference, also link went to "the missing album by the noel reading band and I listened to most of that(which if you care was 3/5)

Nr. 136/1001 Intro NR The Magic Number 3/5 (3x) Change In Speak 3/5 (2x) Cool Breeze on the Rock NR Can You Keep a Secret 2/5 (2x) Jenifa Taught Me 3/5 (3x) Ghetto Thang 3/5 (3x) Transmitting Live From Mars 2/5 (1x) Eye Know 5/5 (3x) Take It Off 2/5 (2x) A Little Bit Of Soap 3/5 (1x) Tread Water 3/5 (3x) Potholes in My Lawn 3/5 (3x) Say No Go 3/5 (3x) Do As De La Does 2/5 (2x) Plug Tunin' 3/5 (3x) De La Orgee 1/5 (1x) Buddy 3/5 (3x) Description 3/5 (1x) Me Myself and I 4/5 (3x) This Is A Record 4 Living 3/5 (3x) I Can Do Anything 2/5 (1x) D.A.I.S.Y. Age 3/5 (3x) Average: 2,98 Really liked Eye Know. The Rest was a mixed bag.

I found this to be a fun vibe! Just 3 friends fucking around. Not necessarily something I'll come back to, but definitely in the upper percentile of things to come out of long island.

fun and vibey!!

It’s definitely a fun album that still feels modern even today. Too bad their music doesn’t stream so I can listen to it without YouTube audio compression

Great stuff - never heard of it before.

retro. loved it

Great album with top notch production and awesome beats throughout.

Unable to stream this anywhere, unfortunately. Fortunately, I still have them on CD. This was the first rap album that I got to really listen to, when my older brother borrowed the tape from a friend. I had no idea music could be this eclectic, creative, playful and downright WEIRD. De La Soul definitely matured as artists, but they never lost their sense of humor or creativity. One thing that separates them from other hip hop acts is the variety of different flows/use of meter that they use. Every album features songs that use off-kilter rhyme schemes, and it all started here. There's precise iambic/trochaic delivery on Me Myself and I, a weird thesis statement at the beginning of each couplet on D.A.I.S.Y. Age, and delayed/echoing rhyme payoffs in Potholes in my lawn, just to name three.

Eye know is such a great song, and in general the album is really good ! 4,5/5

One’s personal high-water mark for hip-hop. The joy and warmth and humor, plus the communal feel of the whole thing. Listening today, one senses there’s perhaps too much filler (or forgettable inserts). This many full-on classics makes this 5. Shame about the lawsuit. And don’t sleep on De La Soul is Dead.

Wow, hard to find to stream but what a nice sound and vibe.

Obv 5 star

love

Smart, inventive, playful, positive, and unlike anything that had gone before. And the sort of album that couldn’t be made now in this age of strict sample clearance, as I am sure the almost-bankrupted De La would attest to. Which is a shame, as the samples are used creatively and with love, but there you go. One of the greatest albums ever made.

This is the first hip hop album that I truly liked from all of the ones I've had to listen during this challenge. So upbeat and groovy! Pity it's not on Spotify! Some weirder tracks on the second half of the album, but overall really good. Favourite tracks: The Magic Number, Change in Speak, Ghetto Thang, Tread Water, Me Myself and I, Plug Tunin

This has got to be regarded as one of the best hip hop albums of all-time. It was like listening to a musical collage with great lyrics & vocals on top of bits of sampled a songs with creative instrumentation. Everything fit together beautifully by masters of music. Excellent album.

It's a shame that this wasn't available on Spotify. It was always one of my favorite hip hop albums. I was able to find it all on YouTube. Great stuff!

What a way to start a weekt and continue my lessons on hip hop (Also thank you to the ppl that put this album on YouTube); from the opening skit I was smiling and the vibe never went away. It was a joy through and through, and learning more about how innovating it was and the impact it had on the culture just made it all the more enjoyable. 5/5, recommending it to everyone.

Hard to find, brilliant

Hugely influential. This was one of the first popular rap albums to not focus on life in the streets. It is a tour de force assemblage of sounds of all genres - there is soul, pop, rock, disco, country all weaved together. There will soon be others that attempt this - some successful (Paul's Boutique) and others not so much. A great work and an awesome debut.

Landmark hiphop record. So much fun to listen to and the sampling is incredible. So glad this is available on streaming now.

so amazing

Excellent

Wrong disc! The missing album from NOEL REDDING https://open.spotify.com/album/3KfvJUJv7Y0NuacdyqidJ0?si=Tn97GoSmRf6dX8ZJAO8yqA

Wow this record was really ahead of its time. It really started the whole conscious/sample-heavy rap that would rise in the 90s. Packed with great tracks. Lots of cool samples. I also really appreciate how the tracks flow into each other. I’ve commonly heard this referred to as “The Sgt Pepper of Hip Hop”. Really fun listen overall.

I know this is a good one. Love some De La Soul.

So bloody good. One of their best and one of of the best. 5 stars.

An absolute classic. Start to finish.

Difficult to find (I found on soundcloud). Just absolutely outstanding. Playful, funny, inventive, beats and flow on point and lyricism is superb, but what really makes it is the range and quality of the sampling.

cool

What fun! I like this a lot! I could only listen to half of the album on youtube, but what was there was great!

I purchased this album on it’s original release and I still have it on my regular playlist to this day. A total game changer for the hippie hip hop generation.

I've never listened to any De La Soul before, but this album was great. The rapping was awesome, some of the lyrics were humorous, and the sampling was out of this world. I was humming "Eye Know" to myself for several hours before I realized they sampled Steely Dan's "Peg" in it. To me, that shows that these guys are incredibly talented at making songs. To take a song that I know, and sample it in a way that makes it something entirely new is a remarkable skill. Also, Trugoy just died yesterday? What a wacky coincidence. I hope the man rests in peace, and I hope to get to listen to more De La Soul.

Wasn’t able to listen to this exact album yet but will when it drops on Spotify. Their discography is amazing though and I can’t believe I’ve never checked these legends out before.

Classic!

hiphop classic

Golden age. It’s a real shame that quantised and sterilised modern production will never allow this kind of hiphop to be made again.

Pretty fucking good and clearly influential. opened my mind to a whole new genre

Fantastic Hip Hop in an alternative vein from its contemporaries. Of course, I think that these guys eventually make even better music later, but truly a great start.

It may have been pouring out my window today, but this put sunshine in my heart.

Classic. Me myself and I.

Pretty close to perfect.

sad but happy about this. some of the samples have been removed due to not having permission.

Crazy for daisies, captures it all. Classic hip hop album. (In my memory follow-up albums were stronger, but it is not true, this album is perfect as it is.)

Wat een lekker album zeg! Vrolijk, vette productie, en lekkere beats. De lol spat ervan af!

Rating: 10/10

In 1989, along with Beastie Boys, these guys proved themselves as the vanguard of "alternative" approaching in hip hop context. They expanded the sound in every possible direction - sample(delia), "progressive" yet diverse musicality by trying to absorb all kind of popular black music (& probably music in general - De La Soul surely wanted to!). They also consciously moved away from aggressive macho/gangsta vibe, used the lyrics and sounds in an obviously more intellectual manner. If you want to know what's more about hip hop than "street" & "criminal" kind of content, this LP is the best to start with. Fav Track: Buddy (Ft Jungle Brothers & Q-Tip)

Wow, where do I begin? I'll start by saying that there are only maybe 10-20% of rap artists I love, and the rest I typically detest. I rarely feel middle ground about rap, but De La Soul may have been in that category...until now! Prior to this listen, I only knew "Me, Myself and I" which I really like. It never moved me enough to buy the album though, and that's pretty much how we found new music back when this released. My bad! A major note is that this had been unavailable for streaming until about 4 weeks ago. This was due to the numerous samples used and getting clearance for those samples. It unfortunately happened just weeks after founding member, Trugoy the Dove, passed away though. (I did some research while listening). This album is special in, not only are the samples used creatively mixed, but the lyrics are intelligently crafted and not in a superficial way. This is a completely positive vibe, much like DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince were. I enjoyed every moment of listening to this. I'm absolutely certain I'll be listening to this many times. I've already listened to a few of the songs 2 or 3 times! If you're an "I hate rap" person, you probably won't enjoy it. However, I would suggest you listen anyway because this might be the album to show you that not "all rap is terrible". You might even get a chuckle at a few of the songs! For me, I regret not listening sooner!

Amazing early hip-hop album.

"3 Feet High and Rising" is the debut album by Long Island, NY hip hop group De La Soul. The album title is based on a Johnny Cash song. The album was produced by Prince Paul with the music and lyrics trying to distance itself from the gansta rap very popular at the time. The music is put into the genres of art rap, progressive rap, jazz rap, pyschedelic hip hop and sampledelia and very influential in each of those. It has sample-heavy production with samples of funk, soul, doo-wop, pyschedelic rock and children's music and bizarre and surreal lyrics. Yeah, I had no idea what they were rapping about at times but it sounded good. The album was a critical and commercial success reaching #1 in the Billboard R&B Albums Chart and #24 in the Top 200. It was also added to The National Recording Registry in 2010 for its significance. The album begins with "Intro" which is essentially a comedic game show hip hop skit. This continues throughout in the background. De La Soul is credited with introducing the hip hop skit approach. "The Magic Number" is the first single. Just a drum beat and background noises and samples. The rapping sounds like it was done into a megaphone. The magic number is three like the number of members in De La Soul. "Eye Know" has some of the best sampling I've heard combining Steely Dan's "Peg" and the guitar and horns from a Mad Lads' song. An easy groove and a simple love and great song. "Plug Tunin'" was their debut single. You know you got the sampling down when you can combine James Brown, Liberace and The Invitations. I think they're commenting on hardcore rap. "Buddy" features the Jungle Brothers, Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest and Queen Latifah. Great samples of a Commodores' song and a 1981 Taana Gardner's disco song. Great rhyming. "Me Myself and I" is my favorite De La Soul song. A strong beat. It's funky, catchy. They lay heavy into the sampling of Funkadelic's "(Not Just) Knee Deep." The song reached #1 on the Billboard R&B Charts. The album ends with the same game show skit that it began with. I'm not sure which one of the four contestants won. There's no doubt that this is a great and influential album. Great rhyming and just outstanding sampling. It is long at 73 minutes and at times somewhat disjointed between songs. But, it is a very enjoyable listen and rightly placed in musical history.

Love this - brings back memories and a good mood

Too long and too many tracks, but those are the only flaws I can find. Near perfect and deserving of 5/5.

Brilliant

It slaps

Incredible stuff. De La Soul was a blind spot for me and I loved this start to finish. Now looking for this on vinyl

This album is awesome. So fun so happy it’s now on Spotify too

I really liked this album! It felt like I was listening to a story in a really interesting way. You could tell everyone that had a hand in creating this album was insanely talented.

An absolute CLASSIC! I've somehow never given the whole album a listen before, and if this isn't a masterclass in album pacing and flow, I honestly don't know what is! Fantastic lyrics/flows throughout, fantastic production, and an extremely entertaining concept--deserves to go down as one of the most influential hip-hop records of all time! Favorite Tracks: The Magic Number, Eye Know, Take it Off, Buddy, D.A.I.S.Y. Age (the list goes on...)

Definitely my favourite hip hop album of all time.

Yes, this is the sort of Hip-Hop I love! This came out amid the explosion of gangsta rap in the late 80s, and it is such a massive contrast to the violent and confrontational direction that the genre was seemingly moving towards. The beats are great, the production is tight, the sampling is top-tier. It's just a fun, playful and totally listenable record, and it just seems like they all had a lot of fun putting this together. Favourite: The Magic Number

The production on this is so specific to 1989/1990. It's a great, joyful album full of clever samples. Lots of fun, back when rap could be fun.

This album was mega influential for good reason. This legendary album lives up to the hype and if you haven’t heard it yet you’ll want to get on er! Hip to the Hop to Top is my faves list.

Quality. Liked how much it just seemed like a load of mates having fun.

Top 5 all time album. Don't need to explain myself further. Got an 80s copy, so all the samples are correct! If you can find one, it's only minor differences from the version that finally made streaming. But it's worth it!

This was exactly what hip-hop needed; child-like wonder replacing guns and bitches.

Dope as all hell

3 Feet High and Rising is my favourite hip hop album of all time, and probably in my top ten albums of all time. I reckon this was played at nearly every party I went to between 1990 and 1993. I bought it when it was pretty fresh out, and still play it today. It's funny and smart and silly and surprising and funky and playful and thoughtful. I hear something new every time I listen to it, and it always makes want to dance. So many great songs on here, and great hooks. This is one the late 80s sampling records that showed how the use of samples, recontextualizing moments of other records drawn from a diverse and eclectic collection, can gel into a new work of art that has something new to offer,. Sadly, the legal ramifications mean that it is hardly feasible to make records like this (or Paul's Boutique or A Nation of Millions) these days, and it kept this album from being readily available for a long time. Which is a damn shame, because this album is so great. It introduced the idea of skits on hip hop albums, which I generally find to be annoying blight, but I love this record so much that I will forgive the skits. I still play songs from this record when I'm DJing, and they always get people on the floor with a smile on their face. An absolute classic, five stars.

Ah De la Soul. The happy smiling voice grooves. They make hip hop sound SO much lighter than anyone I can think of right now... Of course it's more a private listen, as opposed to radio, so unless you had an album, you don't hear this much... Outside clubland, that is, and even then it was faster remixes.... A welcome shift in mood. And I so like the gentle pace. For grooving. And chilling hadn't noticed the whole thing was like a gentle hip hop Sesame Street ... It's explaining the basics. ... Life lessons and a big piss take. Like. Belong on the list .. yes but not sure it's their best album. Was it breakthrough? Like. 4-5/5

FINALLY. Now you can call this list 'A Few Albums You Must Hear Before You Die and 800 Other Albums'. This was my sister's tape and I took it one day and listened to it and it was all I wanted to listen to for months after. As with almost every other moment like this in my childhood, I didn't know anyone else who was listening to this which didn't make sense because this was the best. Still is. That said, the streaming version changed some samples and it drives me crazy. This album is completely soaked in samples, produced in a time when nobody knew what a sample clearance looked like. So they took that Eddie Murphy sample 'Anybody in the audience ever get hit by a car?' out of the end of The Magic Number and it changes the whole thing. I bet Eddie doesn't own that sample. Anyway - if you like this, seek out the original album. It's not a lot different, but the differences make a difference.

i can't offer a real review because listening to the whole album reminds me of just how formative a document it was. a delicious stew of weirdness and hipness that showed that while you might care about being cool, true coolness came from self-confidence. a dramatic curtain pull on a possible future for hip-hop and sampling as art forms, it instead became the victim of being so successful as Art that Commerce demanded tribute, silencing most of De La's catalog for years and then only making it available in neutered form. RIP trugoy.

Puts the “Fun” back into “Funky”! As far as Hip-Hop goes at least. Thankfully it’s now out on streaming services and repressed on Vinyl so the masses can enjoy! Again!

Amazing

Loved it. Great beats sample use and keeps you engaged.

Already listened to this before. It’s quality work but I have to be in a certain mood to enjoy it

Such great memories associated with this one personally. It’s a landmark album really.

10/10 legendary hip hop album I absolutely adore this

...as it turns out, for this album, 5 is the magic number!

Like a familiar hug. Such a nice album. I think DeLa Soul are a group who have only improved with age, though. #####

Bonafide classic, outstanding

Fabulous and important album

The stitching skills to make all seamless👌👌👌

Never listened to too much Hip-Hop but this had me dancing the whole time.