De La Soul was an American hip hop trio formed in Amityville, New York in 1988 and a central act in the Native Tongues collective. 3 Feet High and Rising (1989), produced by Prince Paul, rewired what hip hop could sound like; De La Soul Is Dead (1991) is just as essential. Explore De La Soul vinyl, CDs, and reissues at Wax Trax Records.
De La Soul formed in Amityville, Long Island in 1988 when Posdnuos, Trugoy the Dove, and Maseo were high school friends in the Amityville School District. They became central members of the Native Tongues collective (with A Tribe Called Quest, the Jungle Brothers, and others) and signed with Tommy Boy Records. Their debut 3 Feet High and Rising (1989), produced by Prince Paul, was a transformative document in hip hop that opened up entirely new sonic and conceptual territory for the genre. Their catalog was famously unavailable on streaming platforms for years due to a longstanding dispute over sample clearances with Tommy Boy; the issue was finally resolved in 2023, days after Trugoy's death from heart failure in February 2023.
De La Soul's sound combines alternative hip hop, jazz rap, conscious hip hop, and East Coast hip hop with eclectic sampling drawing on a far broader range of source material than most contemporaneous hip hop. Their playful, surreal, often self-deprecating aesthetic - captured in the Daisy Age concept of their early work - opened a alternative branch of hip hop alongside contemporary acts.
Original Tommy Boy pressings of 3 Feet High and Rising and the early catalog are foundational items in hip hop collecting. The 2023 catalog re-release on Chrysalis/Reservoir made the catalog available on streaming for the first time and produced new vinyl pressings.
Listeners new to De La Soul typically start with 3 Feet High and Rising (1989) or De La Soul Is Dead (1991).
