Alternate Rap

De la Soul, according to Rolling Stone,

made rap history [in the late 1980s] as the first group to go against the hip-hop grain of macho braggadocio, hectoring social comment.... With its light rhythms, laid-back raps, thoughtfully irreverent lyrics, esoteric sampling, and quasi-hippie attitude... [it paved] the way for a steady stream of gently adventurous 'alternative' rap groups ^[1].

De la Soul's 1989 debut album 3 Feet High and Rising (#24 pop charts, #1 R&B) spawned several hit singles including 'Magic Number' and 'Me Myself and I'. Unlike their contemporaries (such as the hard core rap groups of the late 1980s) who used 'old school' samples such as James Brown rhythm tracks, De la Soul drew samples from TV shows and obscure recordings (many taken from their parents' record collections). De La Soul was quickly perceived as the leader of a contingent of New York-based alternative rappers, know as the 'Native Tongues Posse', which included such groups as A Tribe Called Quest, the Jungle Brothers, Queen Latifah, Monie Love, and Black Sheep.

De La Soul's debut topped many 'best-of-the-year lists', but along with all of the accolades came controversy as the band was sued by the Turtles for $(US) 1.7 million. The Turtles track 'You Showed Me' had been sampled without permission and used in De La Soul's song 'Transmitting Live from Mars'. The suit was eventually settled out of court for an undisclosed sum. The incident changed the use of sampling in music and any samples now had to be legally cleared before an album or a song could be released. This had several ramifications - including the delayed release of several albums by a variety of artists until clearance was received for the samples. One of these recordings was De La Soul's second album De La Soul is Dead (which used over a 100 samples from a variety of sources ^[2]).

This delay (of over a year) together with mixed reviews, some of which described the recording as 'darker, more introspective' ^[3], meant that De La Soul is Dead peaked at #26 in the pop charts and # 24 in the R&B charts. The band (although having a major impact sound of hip hop ^[4] ) was eclipsed by the harder sound of 'gangsta rap' or 'reality rap' that had become increasingly popular as the band had waited for the release of their second album.